Sadako Ogata

Why an honorary doctorate? 

Big little giant

As frail as her stature was, so mild was her character, so formidable her vision, so tough her negotiations, so striking her achievements. Her fiery and straightforward fight against injustice and violence characterises her aversion to intolerance. Refugees and their fate are the red thread that runs through her life, which unfolds as a story of humanity and courage.

With the doctor honoris causa, VUB wants to make an extra contribution to the International Year of the Culture of Peace (2000, proclaimed by UNESCO), not in the least because Ogata's approach gives mature sound and colour to the values of VUB.

When there is no longer a home, where do you ground yourself? They are many. Running from the insecurity of and in their own country. Uprooted, displaced, gone: this is the reality of the refugee.

Sadako Ogata fearlessly stepped into the figurative line of fire for them. She tried to recover, heal, and draw better perspectives. Starting afresh requires bravery, balls, courage. So does letting go. You can unite people, work can take place anywhere, and so can life. But you don't build a new home with stones.

About her career

Frail humanitarian

16 September 1927. Sadako Ogata was born in Tokyo. Her father is Japanese ambassador to Finland, her maternal grandfather foreign minister to Japan. Ogata is still a toddler when her great-grandfather, prime minister of the country, is murdered. Political ambitions run in the family.

Sadako goes to study, first in Tokyo and then abroad, even though the latter is not the custom for Japanese women. In 1963, she obtains her doctorate after writing a thesis on the politics behind the establishment of the Japanese state of Manchukuo. In it, she analyses the causes of the Japanese invasion of China. Two years later, she teaches at the International Christian University in Tokyo.

1968. Sadako Ogata is appointed member of the UN Mission in Japan. It is the Japanese feminist Fusae Ichikawa - who helped to push for the extension of women's suffrage in Japan - who nominates her. Ogata remains in the post for three and a half years before returning to Tokyo, but she continues to commute between New York and Geneva to work for UN agencies.

It is 1980 and Ogata is teaching politics at Sophia University in Tokyo. Some time later, she becomes Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Studies. The calendar reads 1990 when the Japanese Prime Minister calls her personally: he wants to nominate her as head of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). She accepts the post.

Even if she is a bit timid and low profile in the beginning, that changes completely after a few weeks. She has herself flown through the border region of Turkey, Iraq and Iran and visits the Kurds there, fleeing Saddam Hussein's merciless army. She decides that the UNHCR will not only look after refugees but also internally displaced persons. In the blink of an eye, millions more people will fall under the Commission's wings.

The years have been marked by humanitarian crises and civil wars; the Gulf War, Yugoslav wars, the Rwandan genocide, refugee camps in the Congo and Afghanistan. Ogata deploys UN soldiers everywhere. Her reputation as a diplomat and humanitarian is growing.

2002. The Japanese government comes knocking on Ogata's door. Does she want to become Foreign Minister. Ogata refuses. She does the same when she gets the proposal a second time. It is said around the water coolers that she has no desire to be an apologist for Japanese macho politics. She does, however, take on the chairmanship of Japan's foreign aid agency with both hands. Within a few years, Ogata has managed to make it the largest bilateral aid organisation in the world. She will continue to be a melodious voice in advisory bodies of all kinds for years to come.

In 2019, Sadako Ogata, a frail figure nicknamed Little Giant, leaves the earth for higher climes. She changed the lives of many refugees forever.

Japanese top woman

In 1990, she became the High Commissioner for Refugees.

AKA "Little Giant"

The little woman was known for her great deeds and her approach changed the lives of countless refugees.

Political blood

With a grandfather who was foreign minister and a father who was Japanese ambassador to Finland, politics seemed to be in her blood.

Japanese feminism

Sadako breaks with tradition to go and study abroad. The feminist Fusae Ichikawa, who extended the Japanese right to vote to women, nominates her as a member of the UN mission in Japan.