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More than her husband's wife

Anna Lisbet Christina Palme is dead, 87 years old. It is more than 30 years since she became a widow, yet the chronologists are characterized by the murder of her husband. But Lisbet Palme deserves headlines for what she did in life.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Lisbet Palme was a warm person with an inexhaustible energy for children and the children's best. As a child psychologist, she eventually got to unfold across the globe. Palm's own granddaughter was her great passion. She proudly told of a train ride with one of them, where he exclaimed: "Grandma, we two are a great couple." And out of the world, through her UNICEF board work, she became known as the "grandmother" of the entire world.

Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson listened to her and got Sweden into the driver's seat for the world's children in record time. On her initiative, UNICEF mobilized 1990 until then the largest international summit of world leaders in New York, following the formidable work she was so proud of: the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

The importance of the Convention for the rights of children in legislation worldwide cannot be underestimated. And Lisbet Palme's name is written on every page and in every paragraph of the significant document. "Children are right!" Was also the motto for campaigns with UNICEF and Save the Children in Norway – and Lisbet cost. Today, the convention is integrated into Norwegian law.

A divisive human being

Lisbet Palme was a living and sharing human being. She visited Oslo and the Swedish-Norwegian cultural center Voksenåsen many times. During the Dag Hammarskjöld program, she engaged in Africa; in East Africa, when we addressed the gender violence against women and brought out the many proud staff at the Panzi Hospital in Congo; for women and their role in war, Convention 1325, together with the women's movement – and for children, children, children.

Lisbets imprints can be seen on every page of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

African fellows at Voksenåsen were always invited to a trip to Stockholm and had dinner with Lisbet. She took us to Gamla Stan, where we got to see her grandchildren (in the distance!) In the kindergarten, see the simple apartment she once shared with Olof and her family, experience Sweden's first water closet on Waldermars Udde, or hear stories like when she together with Olof on a Sunday trip saved a man who had passed through the ice: They took him home, and Lisbet saw his cut to give the wet man Olof's worn-out blue suit that he would otherwise "never in life" divorce. She showed us Stadsgården where she worked for a number of years for the city of Stockholm. During dinner in the fine restaurant we were served deer, as during the Nobel dinner. She proudly said that during a dinner with the king – with royal deer shot – she collected lead shot that the majesty had peppered the poor beast with, which almost – only almost – cost her a seal.

With Lisbet Palme, a champion of the children and their rights and a warm person have passed away. Like few others, she already saw as she lived all that flourished and sprouted. And she rejoiced.

John Y. Jones
John Y. Jones
Cand. Philol, freelance journalist affiliated with MODERN TIMES

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