Her words ring true today as they did when she first spoke them at Beijing conference in 1995, discussing the dignity of the African woman: “Unless we recognize that each individual is irrepeatable (sic) and valuable by virtue of simply being conceived human, we cannot begin to talk about human rights. The accidental attributes that we acquire such as color, sex, intelligence, economic circumstances, physical or mental disability should not be used as an excuse to deprive a person of life.”

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