Born in Mauritania, she is the first person from the African continent to have been awarded the Nuremberg International Human Rights Prize. In 1999, she had to emancipate herself from a forced marriage (she was 12, he was 45) to be able to study law and become the first woman registered with the Nouakchott bar. Her fight for women's rights and against the discrimination suffered by Black Mauritanians led her in prison in 1986.