25/06/2024 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 24 June, at the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the first Vígdis Prize for Women’s Empowerment was awarded to the Irida Women’s Centre, a Greek NGO set up in 2016 during the migration crisis to support women facing poverty, social exclusion and gender-based violence. Awarded jointly by the Assembly and the Government of Iceland, the €60,000 prize is named after the former President of Iceland, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the first woman in the world to be elected head of state in 1980. The other two finalists were the Polish Feminoteka Foundation, which supports women who are victims of violence, and Mexican activist Pascuala López López, who has been threatened by armed groups because of her work to transform the lives of indigenous women in Chiapas. (VL)