Rumiko Seya was Chosen for The Yomiuri Prize for Her Peacebuilding Activities in Places Torn by Armed Conflicts

By Toshinao Ishii / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

19:25 JST, November 20, 2025

Rumiko Seya, 48, has been chosen to receive the 32nd Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize for her peacebuilding and humanitarian operations in places overseas that have experienced prolonged armed conflicts and chaos following conflicts.

As the president of certified nonprofit organization Reach Alternatives (REALs), Seya has worked hard to prevent conflicts between peoples and to foster the development of women and young people who can be “bearers of peace” in nations and regions like Syria and South Sudan.

The authoritarian regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown late last year during a civil war that had continued for nearly 14 years. From late October to early November, Seya visited Aleppo and Idlib, the northwestern areas of Syria, which were once subjected to heavy airstrikes because they were held by opposition forces.

This time, she went there to initiate efforts to foster “bearers of peace,” people who promote coexistence between opposing factions, together with a women’s group, with which she had been collaborating since the civil war. She had also been working to provide mental health care for residents.

Among her local colleagues was a person who lost their family members in an airstrike.

Seya said there is a high level of trauma among women, children and others in vulnerable positions in the area because of the many years of war.

“We need to restore law and order for young people who have not experienced anything other than civil war and tend to turn to violence,” Seya said. “Syria is now at a crossroads as to whether it will move toward peace or return to the state of war caused by division and chaos.”

Seya said she became interested in conflicts at the age of 17 when she saw a photo in the news of a refugee mother and a child from Rwanda, where as many as 800,000 people were massacred. Seya said she remembers thinking to herself that she was looking at a photo of people dying, while she was eating a snack.

It was a shocking experience, and it changed the way she sees the world. She said she found the path she should take at that time.

She went to Rwanda while at university and found there that she was powerless, unable to do anything. In order to acquire useful, practical skills, she then worked as a representative of a Japanese nongovernmental organization in Rwanda and went to Britain to study conflict resolution.

Seya is seen as someone who thinks outside the box and is quick to take action. She worked on the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of soldiers as an employee of the Japanese Embassy in Afghanistan and as a member of a U.N. peacekeeping operations team stationed in Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire.

In Afghanistan, she joined the efforts to recover the weapons of about 60,000 people in the DDR program mainly managed by the Japanese government. Since soldiers did not want to give up their weapons because it meant losing their livelihood, Seya went around persuading warlords and elders to make soldiers part with their weapons.

Seya decided to work for international contributions through NGOs, which can flexibly address challenges, when she was around 30. She joined what is now REALs and decided to work in conflict areas, where, according to her, needs exist but the number of people working to realize peace are scarce.

She went to countries like Somalia and South Sudan, which are suffering from endless cycle of civil wars, to help realize the self-reliance of female displaced people, who are in vulnerable positions, child soldiers, who can be both perpetrators and victims. As her international network expanded to include overseas institutions and experts, she was able to hone her skills to work and protect herself from danger in conflict zones.

Seya believes that change in the world begins with change in people. Although she is well aware of the difficulty of achieving genuine reconciliation between opposing groups, she strives to foster the development of people who can help achieve peace in nations and regions.

Seya places particular emphasis on women’s participation in various efforts. This is because women often cannot speak up at the camps for displaced people. They also are often excluded from the peace process, which leaves reasonable solutions for women neglected.

She also works to nurture organizations so they can be managed by local people and operate independently, without heavy reliance on aid.

When new conflicts emerge around the world, countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan and Syria, where displaced people and refugees have suffered for a long time, tend to be forgotten.

Using its own international network, REALs facilitated the evacuation of more than 320 journalists and cultural figures, among others, who were in life-threatening danger under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, from the country. It also provided safe homes to about 1,600 people.

The United States’ review of its overseas aid has impacted humanitarian assistance in conflict areas. Seya believes Japan, which recovered from the ravages of World War II, can play an active role from a neutral position in the Middle East and African nations. She also thinks international contributions are sustained by people.

In peaceful Japan, warfare in foreign states is often seen as events taking place in the distance. But Seya said she is determined to convey how difficult it is to maintain peace, which is often taken for granted. Having won the prize near the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, she said she wants to keep stressing that we always have to strive ourselves to maintain peace.