I interviewed dozens and dozens of African women who had endured more hardship and trauma than most Westerners even read about, and they ploughed on. I often openly cried during interviews, unable to process this violence and hatred towards women I was witnessing.
Women in Africa, generally a lot needs to be done for women. Women are not being educated, not only in Angola but my trip to Nigeria, one point I would make over and over again was that women need to be educated too.
Instead of presiding over an economic system that panders to big business and a wealthy elite, a more human economy must be established which meets the needs of African women and young people.
I stand before you and the world humbled by this recognition and uplifted by the honour of being the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership.
People thought I was trying to say that women had no say, no rights. I was not saying that. I was saying that women had a role, a duty. When they want to have a say in government - though in Africa they are not expected to do that - they are not discouraged. They can do what they want to do.
There's a false perception that women in Africa somehow don't love their babies they way we do, don't grieve their loss the way we would. That is simply not true.
African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.
I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God. There are so many women in Africa, and outside Africa, who are more intelligent than I am.
I have led the way for moving women from traditional roles to strategic positions and inspired girls and women throughout Africa to seek leadership positions.
The most beautiful women in the world were African.
Women who come to see me admit that they've never looked at their sex organ; they've never seen their clitoris. Now tell me if that isn't a form of being psychologically genitally mutilated? For them, the clitoris doesn't exist, but we're worried about women in Africa!
The white woman has never had the co-equal status that the African woman has had.
Whenever you go through the length and breadth of our country... you see a long face: you will see the long face of an African woman because she's black, because she's poor.
Never take your eye off the ball. Always remember that you and everyone on the team is the servant of the cause - in our case, girls' education and young women's leadership in Africa.
I hear a lot from women in Africa. And not just from dark-skinned women but from all women struggling because of insecurity. They thank me and tell me that I inspire them. And that makes me feel really, really proud.
Women in Africa are really the pillar of the society, are the most productive segment of society, actually. They do agriculture.
Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work.
For more than 20 years, Camfed has supported a generation of African girls and women with access to secondary and higher education, employment opportunities, and, ultimately, into positions of leadership.
I write about African women, that's really my topic. I have no shame or qualm in it because it's a very underrepresented topic, which is part of the reason I started to write.
Women in Africa are really the pillar of the society, are the most productive segment of society, actually. Women do kids. Women do cooking. Women doing everything. And yet, their position in society is totally unacceptable. And the way African men treat African women is total unacceptable.
From Mozambique to Chad, South Africa and Liberia, Sierra Leone to Burkina Faso, feminism is the buzzword for a generation of women determined to change the course of the future for themselves and their families.
