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

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.

Do you know that people fall in love in war and go to school and go to factories and hospitals and get divorced and go dancing and go playing and live life?

Leadership is not about having the charisma or speaking inspirational words, but about leading with example.

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.

From an economic perspective, women are treated unfairly: they perform 66 percent of the world's work and produce 50 percent of the food but they only earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property.

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.