The award was inaugurated this year by the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pay tribute to the world's female leaders.

Associate Professor Virada was among 82 women selected by US embassies around the world.

US Ambassador Ralph Boyce handed the award to Virada, the founder of the Women's Studies Centre at Chiang Mai University. She was praised for two decades of courage and leadership.

Virada is president of the Foundation on Women, Law and Rural Development, which she founded in 2000 to encourage the creation of organisations to provide legal training to women from rural areas and ethnic minorities.

She is currently campaigning to protect women's rights under the new Thai constitution.

A law graduate from Cornell University, Virada returned home to promote understanding of women's rights in Thai society. In 1986, she founded the Women's Studies Centre, the first of its kind in Thailand.

The centre began offering a master's degree in women's studies in 2000.

Virada's books include "With Hindsight", "Heading Forward" and "Domestic Violence against Women: Focusing on Masculinity and the Male Perpetrators".

She has also helped establish the Lao-Thai scholarship programme on gender and health equity.

Virada's work has been recognised by the international community and she is involved with numerous bodies, including the Asia-Pacific Coalition against Trafficking in Women, and she works to increase female participation in politics across the region.

Award winners from other countries include two Afghan campaigners for women's rights, Mary Akrami and Aziza Siddiqui, and Indonesian scholar Siti Musdah Mulia, whose belief in both Islam and women's rights has caused conservative Muslim groups to condemn her and even threaten her with death.

Subhatra Bhumiprabhas

The Nation