Liisa Kauppinen was handed the award in New York on Tuesday, UN Human Rights Day, in tribute to her global work on behalf of the hearing impaired.
The award was given to four other people and to Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice. The other recipients were Mauritanian anti-slavery campaigner Biram Dah Abeid; Kosovo's Hiljmnijeta Apuk, an advocate for people of short stature; Moroccan rights activist Khadija Ryadi and young Pakistani educational advocate Malala Yousafzai. The latter was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize a few weeks ago.
The United Nations Prizes in the Field of Human Rights are handed out once every five years. Previous recipients include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Eleanor Roosevelt.
"Butterflies in my stomach"
Kauppinen was honoured for her work on the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She led the international negotiations on the treaty's sections regarding deaf people and signed languages.
Shortly before the ceremony, she told Yle that she felt "a bit of butterflies in my stomach. This is after all one of the UN's most important days."
Yet while the prize was a great honour, she said, it was not one of the high points of her life.
"The high points are elsewhere -- in those moments when I've seen results in human rights work; when I've seen faith and confidence grow," she said.
