Mangala Sharma

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Mangala Sharma, born in 1969 in Tsirang District, Bhutan, is a Bhutanese human rights and women’s rights activist. She became the first winner of the Ginetta Sagan Fund Award in 1997 for her work helping refugees. In March 1992 she was forced into exile after speaking out against the government’s policies and discrimination against the Lhotshampa people. While in exile, she founded BRAVE (Bhutanese Refugees Aid for Victims of Violence) to support refugees in eight camps in Nepal, offering counseling and training. In 1995 she helped bring women refugees to the Beijing International Women’s Conference, with support from the United States, the United Nations, and Australia. Sharma was granted asylum in the United States in 2000, worked with the Refugee Women Network in Georgia, and in 2007 moved to Roseville, Minnesota, where she started the Nirvana Center to assist resettled families. See also: Human rights in Bhutan; Women in Bhutan.