Jeanne Martin-Cissé

Jeanne Martin Cissé (6 April 1926 – 21 February 2017) was a Guinean teacher and nationalist politician who served as ambassador to the United Nations and in 1972 was the first woman to serve as President of the United Nations Security Council. She served in the government of Guinea as Minister of Social Affairs from 1976 until the 1984 military coup.

Early life and education Martin Cissé was born in Kankan, Guinea, on 6 April 1926, the eldest of seven children. Her father (Darricau Martin Cissé), P.T.T. employee for French colonial administration, was Malinke with Soninke origins (from her paternal grandmother) and her mother (Damaye Soumah), midwife, Soussou. She attended the École Normale de Rufisque in Dakar, Senegal, where she trained to become a teacher.

Career Martin Cissé was one of Guinea's first female teachers and was assigned to the girls' school in Kankan in 1944. She became a member of the Union Madingue in 1946. She met future President Ahmed Sékou Touré, then a PTT trade unionist, and joined the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in December 1947. She lived in Senegal with her husband in the 1950s and represented the Senegalese Democratic Union at the Congress of the International Federation of Women in France in October 1954. She was also elected to chair the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid.

Martin Cissé returned to Guinea in 1976 at the request of President Touré, who appointed her as Minister of Social Affairs and a member of the Democratic Party of Guinea Politburo. After the failed coup attempt of Diarra Traoré in July 1985, she left Guinea, moving first to Senegal and then to the United States. In 1988, she joined the International Committee of Solidarity for Women and Children in Southern Africa. In 2004, she joined as a member of the International Association of Francophone Women.

Martin Cissé's biography, Daughter of the Milo, was published in 2008. In 2014, South African President Jacob Zuma awarded Martin Cissé the Oliver Tambo Order to acknowledge her role as a leader and model in the struggle for women's rights in Africa.

Awards and honors Kuumba award for "significant contributions to African people", 1974 Lenin Peace Prize, 1975

Personal life and death In 1946, Martin Cissé married Mohamed Camara, a police inspector whom she did not know. He died in a car accident later that year when she was three months pregnant. In 1948, she married Ansoumane Touré, one of the founders of the Guinea Democratic Party. He died in Camp Boiro prison in 1971 after being arrested in the aftermath of Operation Mar Verde. Martin Cissé had six children.

Publications