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5 Vital Voices Women Combating the Refugee Crisis

Learn More about 5 Women in our Global Leadership Network Combating the Refugee Crisis

1. Nadia Bushnaq

Nadia Bushnaq is an equal rights advocate and the Founder & Executive Director of the Family Guidance and Awareness Center (FGAC) in Jordan. FGAC provides legal assistance, psycho-social support and vocational training to refugee families. Since 2011, more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees have crossed into Jordan, and Nadia is determined to ease the daunting struggle for as many of them as she can.

2. Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan is a globally recognized humanitarian who uses her platform to advocate for education, and improving the lives of women, children and refugees. At both the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants, and the 2017 Global Leadership Awards, Queen Rania urged world leaders to join her in supporting job-creation and education initiatives to help refugee families rebuild. Globally, she is supporting efforts to use data to identify needs and assist refugee populations, especially women and girls who are vulnerable to abuse.

3. Khanim Latif

Khanim is a fearless leader defending women’s equality and offering a refuge to survivors of gender-based violence in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is focused on expanding support to internally displaced people and Yazidi survivors of abuse, which involves the enormous task of shifting culture towards women who have suffered violence.

4. Dr. Hawa Abdi & Dr. Deqo A. Mohamed-Waqaf

In the world’s conflict zones, girls account for only 30% of refugees enrolled in school, leaving an estimated 10 million girl refugees without access to education. Dr. Hawa Abdi, alongside her daughter, Dr. Deqo A. Mohamed-Waqaf, has devoted her life to changing this reality. Through their work with the Hawa Abdi Foundation, they have cared for over 100,000 internally displaced persons on their family’s refugee camp, featuring both a school and a hospital, since the start of the Somali Civil War.

5. Baljeet Sandhu

Baljeet Sandhu, a 2016 Vital Voices Global Freedom Exchange Fellow, is the founding director of the Migrant & Refugee Children’s Legal Unit and recipient of the 2017 International Award at the DVF Awards. Baljeet works as a human rights attorney, where she advocates for the rights of young people displaced by war as they flee from abuse and violence, protecting them from a life of exploitation and slavery.