When Women Are Safe, Communities Thrive

For more than 120 years, HIAS has stood with people forced to flee persecution and violence. Our history began with Jewish families seeking refuge when safety was denied to them, and our work has grown across continents—but our core purpose remains the same: to ensure that no one is ever forced to face displacement alone.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an annual campaign that begins on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and runs through International Human Rights Day on December 10. The international campaign invites us to look directly at a reality we know deeply: women and girls are disproportionately impacted by conflict, forced displacement, and crisis. When families are forced to flee, when social networks collapse, when resources are scarce, the conditions that allow for violence against women and girls to flourish intensify. Survivors face not only harm, but stigma, silence, and profound isolation.

Yet we also know that women are at the center of protection, healing, and rebuilding. Again and again, across displacement contexts, women hold families and communities together amid profound uncertainty.

In Colombia and Ecuador, Chad and Kenya, HIAS provides support for women and girls who are survivors of war and displacement and works directly with women-led organizations—organizations grounded in lived expertise, cultural knowledge, and deep community trust. In many of the places where HIAS works, women are leading prevention efforts, shaping advocacy, and creating spaces of safety and connection. They are not just recipients of assistance; they are leaders of community resilience and recovery.

Our approach centers and strengthens the leadership of women and girls. We promote mental health and economic empowerment to help refugee women recover from trauma and thrive. We invest in community-rooted expertise. We support pathways for women’s leadership in humanitarian response and decision-making. This is work that lasts—not because it is delivered from the outside, but because it is grown from within communities themselves.

As the first woman to lead HIAS in our more than 120-year history, I carry forward this work with profound responsibility. As a Jewish organization, our history teaches us what it means to be vulnerable to violence—and what it means to survive. Our values compel us to act not only with compassion, but with courage.

Ending violence against women and girls requires clarity, strength, and persistence. But I am hopeful—because I see the women impacted by and leading our work.

And HIAS will continue to stand with them.