Zainab Salbi

Salbi is a Muslim in Baghdad, Iraq In 1971, she moved to the Mansour district with her parents. Her mother was a biology teacher Her mother Alia was a secular Muslim. When Salbi was 11, her father became the personal pilot for Saddam Hussein, who then regularly visited the family at their home while he was president of Iraq. In 1990, at the age of 20, after her mother became concerned about the attention she received from Hussein. She left the marriage after her husband became abusive but could not return to Iraq due to the start of the first Gulf War. ==Career==

While studying at George Mason University, Salbi learned about the systematic rape during the Bosnian war. In 1993, with Atallah, she launched Women for Women International. Salbi began serving as president, initially with a focus on supporting women in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia The program linked sponsors in North America with women in Bosnia. Salbi led the organization until her resignation in 2011, published by Women Waging Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She later testified before the United States Congress about the contents of the report. By 2006, Salbi had appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show six times discussing the work of Women for Women International. In January 2005, it produced a report presenting findings from a survey of 1,000 Iraqi women. The report conveyed women's concerns about their safety during the war. , 2016 In 2015, Salbi launched the TLC Arabia talk show The Calling, The show was broadcast in 22 countries In response to her television work, Salbia has been called the "Oprah of the Middle East" and "The Voice of Arabia". In February 2018, she started hosting the PBS television shows #MeToo, Now What?. The five part series explored how positive change could occur after the aftermath of the MeToo movement, examining issues of gender, race, and social class. As the host, Salbi interviewed political commentator Angela Rye, writer Ijeoma Oluo, activist Nadine Strossen, and a former Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's blog editor who was accused of sexual assault. In 2018, Salbi hosted the Yahoo! News show Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi, focusing global issues affecting women. Salbi is the author of the 2005 memoir Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam that documents her childhood, her family's proximity to Saddam Hussein, her arranged marriage, escape from Iraq to the United States, marital abuse, and the start of her humanitarian career.'' Salbi is the author of the 2006 nonfiction book The Other Side of War, which documents the stories of women who have lived through conflict and inequality and succeeded in community leadership and business. In 2022, she joined the online mindfulness and spirituality platform FindCenter'' and began to host the center's podcast Redefined. in September 2023. == Awards and recognition ==

In 1995, President Bill Clinton honored Salbi at the White House for her humanitarian work and identified her as a "21st Century Heroine". Time magazine named her Innovator of the Month in March 2005 In April the same year, Salbi received a Forbes magazine Trailblazer Award. and was identified as one of the Top 100 Women Activists and Campaigners for her role in setting up Women for Women International by The Guardian. Salbi was identified as an influential Arab woman by Arabian Business, and one of the 100 Global Thinkers in the World by Foreign Policy. With almost 24,000 followers, Fortune identified Salbi as one of the Most Influential Women on Twitter in 2014, noting her women-focused humanitarian work. Gulf Business declared her one of the 100 Most Powerful Arabs in 2019, noting her role leading Women for Women International. Salbi was selected as a jury member of The Hilton Humanitarian Prize in 2020 and 2021. Zainab Salbi was honored with the Time100 Impact Award She has honorary doctorates from the University of York (2014), George Mason University (2019) and Glasgow University (2019). She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Award in 2019 for her writing and television work to advance awareness of issues affecting women. In 2005 she was given the Human Security Award by the University of California, Irvine's Blum Centre for Poverty Alleviation. == Books ==

• Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam, 2005, , • Hidden in plain sight: growing up in the shadow of Saddam, London: Vision, 2006. , • ''The Other Side of War: Women's Stories of Survival & Hope'' Washington, D.C: National Geographic, 2006. , • If You Knew Me You Would Care New York: PowerHouse Books, 2012. , • Freedom Is an Inside Job: Owning Our Darkness and Our Light to Heal Ourselves and the World, Sounds True, Incorporated, 2018. , ==References==