Complete your nomination by December 15, 2024 for your selection to be considered for the 2025 RFK Human Rights Award.

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The RFK Human Rights Award identifies and honors those who embody Robert F. Kennedy’s belief that the power of individual and collective moral courage can overcome injustice. Each year, we honor outstanding champions of social justice who stand up to oppression, often at great personal risk, in the nonviolent pursuit of human rights.

Over the past 40 years, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award has recognized 58 outstanding activists and organizations from 32 countries. Honorees receive a cash prize of $30,000, but what sets this awards program apart is that they also receive ongoing support for their important work from RFK Human Rights—through campaigns and mobilization, strategic litigation, training and capacity-building, and other forms of critical support for their work and movements.


On June 6, 2024, anti-detention and LGBTQ+ advocate Arely Westley received the 41st annual RFK Human Rights Award.

On June 6, 2023, the Parlamento del Pueblo Xinka (Parliament of the Xinka People) received the 40th annual RFK Human Rights Award.

On June 7, 2022, we were proud to present the RFK Human Rights Award to Cameroonian human rights defenders Maximilienne C. Ngo Mbe and Felix Agbor Nkongho (Balla) in Washington, D.C.

On October 27, 2021, laureate Guerline Jozef accepted the RFK Human Rights Award at a pop-up ceremony in San Diego, CA.