Growing up under Saddam’s rule, I witnessed many injustices occurring everyday in my country and yet I could not do anything to prevent them.

If half the society isn’t engaged on any number of sectors, success and potential will be limited. In that sense, I do definitely believe there is a growing movement and moment for women’s issues.

Historically speaking, religious and conservative groups always wanted the control over the private sphere that impacts women most, as reflected by family law and women’s access to resources and mobility. And often secular groups traded this for economic incentives and trade.

I find it amazing that the only group of people who are not fighting and not killing and not pillaging and not burning and not raping, and the group of people who are mostly – though not exclusively – who are keeping life going in the midst of war, are not included in the negotiating table.

I have come to understand that in order to effectively advance women’s rights, we need to galvanize a global women’s movement.

Working with women survivors of war has taught me that we need to listen to women’s perspectives on war in order to understand how to effectively rebuild a country, a community and a family.

I don’t have a child, so Women for Women is like my child. But I always said I would step down after 20 years. I didn’t want to be a 60-year-old woman holding on to something I created when I was 23.

Changes don’t happen in the world by playing it safe, taking risks is the way to change the world.

Since war often enters homes through the “kitchen door,” we need to understand women’s attempts to keep life going in the face of shortage of food, closing of schools and reduced freedoms.

I believe that a lot of progress has been achieved to address gender inequality: We have moved from a time where women in the US could not apply for credit card without their husband’s signature to a time where women are the owners of their businesses.