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

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.

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

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.

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.

The injustice is that women continue to be the main target of violence both during wartime and peacetime and yet there is still a lack of a public outrage.

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.