Zainab Bangura

Who is Zainab Bangura?

Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura is a Sierra Leonean politician and Social Activist. She was appointed as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict in September 2012.

In 2007, Bangura became Sierra Leone's foreign minister in the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Congress Party. She was the second woman to serve in that post, following Shirley Gbujama who held that position from 1996 to 1997. Mrs. Bangura also served as Sierra Leone's Minister of Health and sanitation from 2010 to 2012.

As a devoted Muslim, Mrs. Bangura took time off politics in 2009 to travel to the Holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to participate in the 2009 Hajj pilgrimage ceremony. She was appointed as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict on 22 June 2012.