Like life, peace begins with women. We are the first to forge lines of alliance and collaboration across conflict divides.

Women are not just victims; they are survivors and leaders on the community-level backlines of peace and stability.

My message to the world is that until we recognize that peace is not just the absence of war but the revival of life on the "backlines," where women are keeping kids in school, caring for the sick and injured, and daily negotiating space for the continuation of critical life processes of this nature, we're going to continue to miss the point.

Women in the Arab world have a rich history in their active participation in political change from the Algeria revolution against the French occupation to the most recent revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya among other countries. The question is not their participation. Their question is the incorporation of women's voices fully in the new definitions of the countries where change has happened.

It appears easier to talk about protecting women than it is to fully include women at all decision-making levels in peace talks and post-conflict planning.

Stronger women build stronger nations.

It seems to me that violence against women has been tolerated for so long that the world has become numb to it.