The 2025 Laureate is Ana Paula Gomes de Oliveira (Brazil), who co-founded the collective ‘Mothers of Manguinhos’ to fight for justice after the killing of her son, a 19-year-old Black man, who was shot in the back by a military police officer in the favelas of Rio on his way back from his girlfriend’s house in May 2014. The collective serves as a front for resistance and advocacy, but also as a network of emotional support and solidarity between women who share stories of similar loss. These women, in their majority Black, many of whom have lost children and other family members to violent actions by law enforcement officials, came together to denounce violence in the favelas, especially police violence that disproportionately affects poor Black youth. ‘When we are born Black and raised in the favelas, we are targeted by a racist system that is also reinforced by public security policies based on death and imprisonment,’ says Ana Paula. According to the UN, killings by the police have more than doubled in the last ten years in Brazil, with more than 6000 killings every year over the past six years. Black people, overwhelmingly men, represent a shocking rate of 82,7% of the killings by police officers in 2023. ‘The racist violence in Brazilian streets merits the full attention of the federal government and the international community,’ says Hans Thoolen, Chair of the Martin Ennals Award Jury.
The collective ‘Mothers of Manguinhos’ fights for truth, memory, justice, freedom and the human rights of Black, poor, and peripheral lives. The collective is a member of the UN Antiracism Coalition (UNARC) and during the 57th session of the Human Rights Council, Ana Paula delivered a powerful message at a side event organised by UNARC on the perspectives of the Afro-Brazilian community directly affected by police violence in Brazil.
The Jury also recognised two finalists: Aloikin Praise Opoloje (Uganda) and Saadia Mosbah (Tunisia). | 
