Dita Sari wins 2002 Reebok Rights Award

Dita Sari wins 2002 Reebok Rights Award

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian labor activist Dita Indah Sari has been named joint-winner of the 2002 Reebok Human Rights Award.

Since 1988 Reebok, one of the world's leading footwear manufacturers, has presented the award to honor activists aged 30 years of age or younger for their efforts to improve human rights at great personal risk and against formidable odds.

Dita, 29, was awarded $50,000 award for her eight-year struggle.

"She has been harassed, arrested, imprisoned and tortured for her efforts to improve the deplorable labor conditions for thousands of factory workers, primary women, in Indonesia," Massachusetts-based Reebok International Ltd. said in a statement released Wednesday.

Dita and three other recipients -- Kavumbu Hakachima of Zambia, Babita Maili Lama of Nepal and Mallka Asha Sanders of the United States -- will be presented with their awards at a ceremony during the Olympic Arts Festival on Feb. 2002 at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City.

The Reebok Human Rights Award is the second award that Dita has received in less than a year. Last August, she won the $25,000 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the young emergent leadership category.

The University of Indonesia law school dropout and co-founder of the controversial Indonesian Democratic Party (PRD) leads the Congress of the National Front for Indonesian Workers Struggle (FNPBI).

In 1996, Dita led 20,000 striking workers in the East Java industrial city of Surabaya demanding better labor conditions. She was arrested and sentenced to six years jail on charges of subversion. Thanks partly to international pressure, Dita was released from prison in 1999.

Her struggle is often attributed to the fledging Labor movements in Indonesia. The FNPBI claims to include 15 trade unions with 22,000 members.