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.