Mtetwa received several awards from legal organizations. In 2009, the European Bar Human Rights Institute gave her the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize ("The award given by lawyers to a lawyer"). That award is given each year to a lawyer who, throughout his or her career, has illustrated, by activity or suffering, the defence of human rights in the world. Mtetwa won the 2010 International Human Rights award of the American Bar Association. In 2011, she received the Inamori Ethics Prize from Case Western Reserve University in the US. In 2014, she received the International Women of Courage Award.