Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Navi Pillay is a judge from South Africa. She is 85 years old. She heard some big news: she won the Nobel Peace Prize. First, she thought it was a joke. She said she wanted to check it.

The news was true. On 9 October 2026, a group of people in Oslo gave her the prize. They chose her from more than 280 people.

Pillay was born in 1941 in Durban, in South Africa. Her family came from India. At ten years old, she wrote about the courts. Judges punished Black people more than white people. She wrote about this.

At that time, South Africa had very bad laws for people who were not white. In 1967, Pillay opened her own office as a lawyer. A lawyer helps people in court. No other office wanted her, because she was not white. For 28 years, she helped people in court. These people fought the bad laws. In 1995, she became a judge in South Africa.

Then President Nelson Mandela sent her to a court for Rwanda. In 1994, people in Rwanda killed very many people. She was a judge there for eight years.

In 1998, the court said a man was guilty. His name was Jean-Paul Akayesu. He was a mayor. A mayor is the boss of a town. Pillay was a judge in this case. Men in the town hurt many women. The court said rape in a war is a very big crime.

In 2003, she became a judge at the International Criminal Court. This court judges people for very bad crimes.

Pillay is the fifth South African with the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the first South African woman with it.

On the same day, the United States punished the International Criminal Court. A woman from the court said the court will not stop its work.