Three International Women of Courage awardees spoke at the Elliott School of International Affairs Friday about their work fighting injustice.

The women discussed their activism in their respective countries and their experiences in dealing with oppressive and authoritarian regimes. More than 100 people attended the event, which was moderated by Shirley Graham, the director of the Elliott School’s Gender Equality Initiative.

Amaya Coppens, a student activist from Nicaragua, was involved in protests against the left-wing Sandinista government in 2018, which traces its origins to the bloody 1979 revolution against the right-wing Somoza government. The protestors rallied against President Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian tendencies, which have included silencing media outlets by buying them and enforcing his rule with paramilitary groups.

Coppens, a medical student at the time of the recent protests, said she refused to engage in brutality against anti-Sandinista protesters and was subsequently jailed.

“Conditions in the jails in Nicaragua, in general, are inhumane, and this is true for all prisoners in jail in Nicaragua,” Coppens said through a translator. “But we as political prisoners were subjected to even worse humiliation and poor treatment.”

She said arbitrary arrests of protesters and inhumane treatment of political prisoners continues to be a problem in Nicaragua. She added that many political prisoners are forced into exile once they are released from jail out of fear of persecution from the government.

“Even when we are released from jail, we are not free,” she said.

The U.S. Department of State recognized 12 women with the International Women of Courage award this year and has given the award to 146 women from 77 countries since the award’s creation in 2007, according to a State Department press release.

Amina Khoulani, a founding member of the Families for Freedom movement, said she works to support people whose families have been detained and potentially executed by the Syrian government.

The movement opposes “enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention by the Syrian regime,” according to the movement’s website.

Khoulani, who survived such detainment, said prisons in Syria are “just like graves.” Speaking through a translator, she said she wanted to “show the whole world what these women managed to do” and asked people to “imagine what they could do if they got their freedom.”

Rita Nymapinga, a human rights crusader from Zimbabwe who founded the Female Prisoners Support Trust, experienced sexual harassment and discrimination when she was imprisoned for protesting with a trade union. She said female prisoners face greater stigma than male prisoners, the latter of whom are seen as heroic when they are jailed for their activism.

“There are so many gender discrepancies when we look at how women are treated during and after imprisonment,” she said. “Men are celebrated to be heroes, whereas women are taken as very bad people, very irresponsible.”

She said she and her fellow activists are now seen as “political misfits” following their imprisonment. Nymapinga added that she found it difficult to access the justice system when imprisoned in Zimbabwe given that the few available pro bono lawyers are often threatened.

She said these conditions and the lack of representation for prisoners in Zimbabwe drove her to become an activist.

“If the government cannot provide water and electricity to the ordinary person who is out in the street, the prison is the last place they would ever think of,” she said.