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Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan's First Female Governor, Wins Ramon Magsaysay Award

This undated photo released by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation shows 2013 Ramon Magsaysay awardee Habiba Sarabi, 57, from Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation)

MANILA, Philippines -- Afghanistan's first and only female governor and a humanitarian worker from Myanmar's Kachin minority are among this year's recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, often regarded as Asia's version of the Nobel Prize.

The Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation announced Wednesday that it had selected three individuals and two organizations as this year's awardees, including a Filipino doctor, an independent commission eradicating corruption in Indonesia and a civil society organization in Nepal created and run by human trafficking victims.

The awards, named after a popular Philippine president who died in a 1957 plane crash, honor people and groups who change their societies for the better.

Habiba Sarabi, 57, was chosen for helping build a functioning local government and pushing for education and women's rights in Afghanistan's Bamyan province despite working in a violent and impoverished environment in which discrimination is pervasive, the foundation said. Public education and the ratio of female students have increased in her province, where more women are taking up careers that were forbidden under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime..... Continue Reading...