ZIF expert nominated for UN award

The UN Women Trailblazer Award for Justice and Correction Officers recognizes female employees in peacekeeping missions who have made an outstanding contribution to the rule of law and social participation. Five experts were nominated this year, including German civilian expert and ZIF secondee Lena Ellen Becker.

All of the nominees have one thing in common: as trailblazers, they have overcome gender stereotypes and proven that women play an important role in the justice and correctional systems. They have succeeded in involving women in conflict areas in the development of constitutional structures, giving them a voice and enabling them to shape the future.

Lena Ellen Becker is seconded to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) through the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) and the German Foreign Office. There, she contributes to strengthening constitutional structures, in particular by supporting mobile courts in remote regions. These enable crimes to be investigated, victim protection to be improved, and access to justice to be guaranteed even in rural areas.

With this nomination, the UN recognizes the commitment and professional expertise of its employees in the field of civil crisis prevention and peacebuilding. Lena Ellen Becker is competing for the Trailblazer Award alongside four other women from Cameroon, Nigeria, and Senegal. Two other UN employees were also honored with an honorable mention, including another German: Michelle Dörlemann. She works as a justice officer on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany at the UN Mission in Somalia, also seconded by ZIF and the Federal Foreign Office.

We would like to congratulate our two civilian experts on this recognition and thank them for their dedicated work!

The award ceremony will take place on October 8, 2025, in New York.

Further information about the award can be found here. 

You can read more about Lena Ellen Becker's work and her nomination here.