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

Everything is give and take. The solutions are in the middle not in the extremity of the situation.

Only 8 percent of peace talks have included women at any level.

Women still need higher political representation and to be included at decision making tables in all issues in order for solutions that relates from peace to food, to health, to basic stability in the world. We cannot continue to marginalize half of the population in the world in finding sustainable solutions that are good for all.

Unfortunately, violence against women is not the only injustice women face globally; it is one of the many inequalities that impede the full development of socially excluded women globally.

Women are part of peace keeping troops in countries like Liberia.

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.