Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
What is justice? Who does it serve? Why should you care?
When we think about justice, we think about it as an abstract, something that happens to someone else, somewhere else. Bad people. But justice and the law regulate every aspect of our interactions with each other, with organisations, with the government.
We never think about it until it impacts our lives, or that of someone close.
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Our guests are women with lived experience of the justice system whether as victims or women who have committed crimes; people at the forefront of civic action who put their lives on the line to demand a better world such as maligned climate justice campaigners.
We ask them to share their insight into how we might repair a broken and harmful system, with humanity and dignity.
We also speak with people who are in the heart of of the justice system creating important change, climate activists, judges, barristers, human rights campaigners, mental health advocates, artists and healers.
The View believes that we can rebuild lives with hope, and successfully reintegrate people who have caused harm or been harmed, through the restoring nature of art and creativity, open dialogue and - love.
Rebel Justice - changing the way you see justice
E. 72. Zainab Salbi: War, Womanhood & the Will to Heal
In this powerful first installment of a two-part conversation, Rebel Justice speaks with Zainab Salbi — humanitarian, author, survivor, and founder of Women for Women International. From growing up under Saddam Hussein’s regime to building a global movement for women survivors of war, Zainab’s life is a story of resilience, truth-telling, and transformation.
Hosted by Anna Shapiro, this episode explores how war impacts women in ways often ignored by history, and how illness brought Zainab into deeper connection with nature, purpose, and the feminine spirit. She shares what it means to slow down, to listen, and to rebuild life after devastation.
Zainab’s voice is calm, fierce, and unforgettable — a reminder that healing is a radical act, and that women’s stories are essential to justice.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where Zainab speaks about co-founding Daughters for Earth, and the deeper meaning of the Hummingbird Effect — a call to collective climate action through individual courage.
Learn more at daughtersforearth.org
Download Issue 13 of The View Magazine for an exclusive interview with Zainab.
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Soundtrack: Particles (Revo Main Version) by [Coma-Media]
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Welcome to Rebel Justice, a podcast by the View magazine, a platform by and for women in the justice system. I'm Irene Molina and in today's episode we bring you the first of a powerful two-part conversation with one of the most extraordinary voices in the global women's movement, zeynep Zalbi. Zeynep is the co-founder of Women for Women International, a groundbreaking organization that has supported over half a million women survivors of war in conflict zones around the world. She is also the co-founder of Daughters for Earth, a global initiative supporting women-led efforts to restore and protect the planet. But Zeynep's story isn't just one of global advocacy. It's deeply personal. She grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime. She lived through war, escaped an abusive marriage and began her life's work with nothing but the conviction that women's lives and voices matter. In this episode, you'll hear Zainab in conversation with Anna Shafiro as she opens up about the impact of war, the strength of women and how getting seriously ill changed the way she sees the world and brought her closer to nature. Let's begin.
Speaker 2:I am someone who always knew that I want to dedicate my life for women rights and freedom, and I was lucky to know that at a younger age, when I was 16 years old, growing up in Iraq, I guess within that framework, it was always defined by women and conflict. So I grew up in war and I was very aware and sensitive about how do we understand wars and later peace from a woman's perspective, because we don't discuss wars and peace from a woman's perspective. We always discuss them from men's perspective, which is different. It's just a different perspective. Men are talking about weapons and politics and borders and power and money, and women are talking about how do we keep life going in the midst of war, how do we build life in aftermath of war. They're talking much more about life as opposed to the destruction of life. So that was a very poignant point for me that I realized when I was a child, because I was living in war myself. And then when I later on I realized, when I grew up, and I realized that there were other wars beside the wars that I grew up in my own home country, iraq, and that's how I decided to work with women for Women International, or rather found Women for Women International and work with women survivors of wars, and that there was a pattern.
Speaker 2:That's in conflicts that women face, as in conflicts often impact women severely Rapes, displacement, food scarcity all of that and they do a lot of work to keep life going. As I said, education, schooling, farming, factories, keep their families alive and yet they're not acknowledged in any negotiations, most negotiations, even though we know that when women are part of negotiating teams in peace agreements, these peace agreements last much longer. And then they get two, 10 cents out of every dollar that is humanitarian dollar that is given to all humanitarian work. Well, later on in life I realized the conflicts. The mother of all conflicts at the moment is the health of Mother Earth. That is much more important than any current conflict going on, whether it is Ukraine or whether it is Sudan or whether it is Gaza.
Speaker 2:The existential conflict facing, or crisis facing humanity is actually climate change and it risks all of us equally. And women in that case are also facing in the same pattern as in. Their impact is severely by climate change, more severely than their male counterparts. They're doing a lot to address climate change, particularly in nature-based solutions, and then they are getting 0.2 cents out of every US dollar, and so that's what led me in recently found to found Daughters for Earth is to address that same pattern. So it's it's. I have the fortune of working with women and being inspired by so many amazing women and truly the heartbreaking of witnessing how the world by so many amazing women and truly the heartbreaking of witnessing how the world, in so many ways which I thought we have evolved, constantly marginalized women in their treatment, financially, politically, in solutions. It's the marginalization of women really have not have made big steps and yet the fundamentals are still there and so much work to be done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, something I always think about is specifically here. From a Western perspective as well, there feels to be the dominant understanding that feminism's been achieved and we've like reached this milestone. In a way that then leads to it allows people to negate all the truths that are actually still like occurring in the UK, the US, dominant Western powers, but also just like throughout the world. I think it's almost allowed people somewhat of a shield to hide behind, as though gender equality has been achieved, when in actual fact, as we're seeing, even the few rights that have been won have been continually rolled back and something needs to be fought for at all times. Yeah, so I was wondering you spoke about like realizing that the primary of the mother issue facing all women is climate change.
Speaker 2:I was wondering if you had any personal experiences or specific defining moments that ignited your passion specifically for climate justice, or if it was just like, as you said, the general realization yes, I had a moment and, and the moment was I was very sick and I couldn't live in the city when I was very sick because the sounds of city, of the city, was extremely loud in my ears. When I was in a very frail position and I ended up living in the countryside and and actually just really had an encounter with nature in ways you know. I would have momentary glimpse at it when.
Speaker 2:I was camping before or hiking or whatever, but I had to live exclusively in nature for a year and a half.
Speaker 2:And I realized when I was sick that because you slow down when you're ill and you're forced to slow down, and my movement was slow and my thinking was slow. And you know, I remember a teaching that I had from a former teacher, angela's Aryan. She said everything about the rhythm of life is slow to medium, except us humans that we go so fast about life that we stop listening to the actual rhythm of life, to the rhythm of nature and all that nature has to teach us. And in hindsight I now tell you I got lucky to be sick, to encounter the rhythm of nature, and from there I came to I honestly believe that nature saved me and that it was always there, but I just never paid attention to it right, or, like pause to say, to be in reverence to it, to be grateful to it.
Speaker 2:I actually think all of us are guilty, to be honest, because we sort of go about our lives and sort of taking nature for granted, right, taking earth for granted. We sort of consume without thinking about the ripple effect, we throw garbage and food without thinking about the ripple effect. We farm with just expecting that nature is just going to give us resources forever, and we extract, and you know it's sort of so. There is really no reverence for nature. I actually feel if nature had a song, it will be. I would survive. You know, get out of the door, walk. You're not welcome anymore because we've been horrible friends, we've been horrible lovers to nature itself and I just had an awakening moment to realizing nature and I don't use fancy words at all in terms of, because I had to understand what is climate change and what is happening to mother earth. And you know, for me, you know, all these fancy words, including climate justice, was too abstract for me. You know, it was too theoretical, it was too heady. And it was my experience, which was much more, truly a heartfelt experience. It was encountering someone that is nature for the first time in my life in ways I never paid attention to it or seen it before. And then it led me to such deep gratitude to that connection and to her that I said I don't understand this climate change and honestly, I think I'm always grateful for the climate change movement, for awakening us to the moment that we are. And in the same breath I say and we need to use different language to express what is happening to Earth, because it took me two years to understand what the heck is going on in terms of climate change, and I'm an educated person, right To dismantle and decipher the terminologies and all of that. To understand, okay, that is what's happening.
Speaker 2:To understand that protecting nature itself, leaving nature alone, or protecting the health of the soil and the biodiversity that exists all over nature is, by itself, a third to 37% of all solutions, and yet we don't talk about it, right? We talk so much more about technology and innovation, and when the solution really is very basic or a good third of the solution is leave Earth alone, basically Leave part of nature alone, at least to let her regenerate. And so it's sort of where I feel like we humans are so narcissistic even in our solutions, right, because we think it's our innovation that is going to save us from climate change, as opposed to return back to the basic and if we just let one third or 37, depends on who you talk with of nature alone, and that includes rivers and oceans, and that includes, you know, lands and the Amazons and lands in every country and every farm, and that includes allowing all the species to come back and to regenerate and to refurbish themselves. That just doing nothing. No innovation in here is actually a huge part of the solution that can get us out of the crisis.
Speaker 2:And what I came to realize? That actually, women are actually in tune to that, are more in tune to protecting nature and to being kinder to nature, and they're doing a lot but they're not getting no one is talking about women's leadership and they're getting, as I said, miniscule amount of financial support, and that was sort of what precipitated the birth of Daughters for Earth. It was me and many other women, including my co-founder, who basically said let's do something about this, we can do something about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really interesting because my next question was going to be yeah, that's really interesting because my next question was going to be um, what do you think the unique perspectives women bring to the climate justice movement? And you've, I suppose, just answered that and it made me think. Also, it's interesting, while wanting to avoid, like, drawing specifically gendered boundaries or categories. If you think of who's led the charge in capitalism and the exploitation of earth in favor of wealth generation and innovation, it's always been men at the forefront of that movement. That it's interesting now that you say that women have known, or do know, a specific way to live with the earth, not an exploitative way, and therefore, as you say, like, let it do its healing.
Speaker 2:That's can be very much done if left alone and that is by no means to generalize all men or to generalize all women I'm I'm oversensitive about that, um but it does mean I do believe you know that earth has a, which means that earth is alive. It has a heartbeat. It's alive. The species around us are alive. We all can feel them. We all have the choice to slow down and just to be in tune with them.
Speaker 2:And men and women, without stereotyping women, and not all women, I do believe, for whatever reason, we are faster, not only, we're just more likely to be in tune, to hear that call of honor, and this is a theory. You can accuse me of stereotyping or journalizing women, which I may be doing that, but that's not to exclude men being able to do that or tapping into that feeling, or all of us are capable if we only take the effort. And I have different theories. Maybe women are less mobile than men at the community level. Maybe women have less resources than men or less opportunities, so they are at the field, they are much more in tune to that heart.
Speaker 2:Maybe our body, the way it functions, you know it may, but that's not to exclude men, it's just we are faster likely to hear that earth song and to connect with it on an emotional level before intellectual level in terms of the solution. And my, what I'm saying is that emotional connection. If we see, if we love again the earth, then our solution could also be kinder, you know, then that's all, and our money could be rewired in a different way. That is not about extraction, but it's also about giving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I was wondering you've again, on that, kind of touched on why you felt the desire to create a safe funding and community space for women, but I was wondering what challenges you faced in the process of creating Daughters for Earth, if any.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's always challenges. In any work there are challenges. You know there's always logistical challenges Finding who are these women. It's not been a challenge but you have. You know you have to work to find them Right.
Speaker 2:I find a lot of men in leadership positions in different sectors say, well, we cannot find women in this sector. And I'm like, actually, if you just dig a little bit, just try a little bit harder, you know you will find the women in all sectors, experts in all fields. It's just at the first value. Maybe you don't see them right. You just have to, like, just search a little bit. So that's a process to find and it did activate, you know, a global women's movement, basically our leaders, to find them, to help us find them, identify them and connect with them.
Speaker 2:Logistically it's always hard. You know making sure that the money is going. You know finding logistics and aspects to find. You know find a way to get them the money at the grassroots level, in different ones and honestly, it's constantly the dance between the heart and the mind, you know. So we're saying we trust women, that you know they are doing that they are protecting this part of nature that is, that science have already mapped up and saying it is actually vitally important that we need to, that they are already there, that they are already doing the work. This is all correct and in the meantime, we have to also answer to the mind. Let it you know, to the mind, let folks are saying what are the metrics and what are the measurements and where are the you know?
Speaker 2:And that dance between the heart and the mind is constantly a challenging dance. Right, it's not necessarily an easy flow and it's both important and it's both needed. Right. One hand, we activated, finding the women and finding and having the decision making of who to get money and how be led not by myself, but by women, conservationists and scientists who are in the field, embedded in the field, dedicated their lives to the protection of the earth. So changing the power dynamic of the meaning of philanthropy, but also, in the meantime, trusting women in what? In what they're doing. But in the meantime also there's in what they're doing, but in the meantime also, there's the moment we're saying and we have to measure and we have to prove that investing in women is actually the most vital investment in terms of how long the dollar goes through. Right, so both are true and the dance between them often presents challenges, but these challenges comes with the job, basically with that, with any process that brings us to the end of part one of our conversation with Zeynep Salbi.
Speaker 1:In part two, we'll hear Zeynep talking about the founding of Daughters for Earth and the story behind the hummingbird effect, a powerful metaphor for how small acts can drive big change. Until then, thank you for listening to Rebel Justice, a podcast by the View magazine. We hope you found this episode as fascinating as we did. If you'd like to learn more about Zeynep and her ongoing work, visit daughtersforearthorg. You can also download issue 13 of the View, which includes an exclusive interview with Zeynep. Thank you at the underscore view underscore magazines. You can also find us on X formerly Twitter LinkedIn and Facebook.