The co-founder of Women for Women International, Zainab Salbi affected world change by helping women in war-torn countries connect with and find economic support from women in the West. She has served as president of the group from its launch in 1993. A native of Iraq, Salbi also offered insight into the person and regime of Saddam Hussein with her 2005 autobiography Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam.

Born in Iraq during the late 1960s, she is the daughter of Basil and Alia Salbi. Her father was a skilled pilot for Iraqi Airlines; she grew up in a life of privilege, since her parents were part of the social elite in Baghdad. They knew Saddam Hussein before he came to power, but her parents were not impressed with him. He cultivated their friendship after he took charge of Iraq, though they did not want it. When Salbi was eleven years old, her father reluctantly became Saddam's personal pilot because to refuse him could mean dire consequences. The family spent much time with Saddam and his cronies, where they were watched, controlled, and lived in fear.

Of her early years, Salbi told body+soul, "Growing up in Iraq, I saw all kinds of injustice--my best friend's father getting executed, my mother on the verge of deportation simply because she was a Shia. As a child, I could do nothing about these things. I feared even showing my tears."

While Salbi was studying languages at an Iraqi university, her mother feared for her safety. In an attempt to protect her daughter, Salbi's mother sent her to the United States in 1990 where an arranged marriage awaited her. The marriage was abusive and she soon left her husband after he raped her. While Salbi was in the United States, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which led to the Gulf War of the early 1990s. Salbi waited to return to Iraq because of the war, but after it ended she decided to remain in the United States.

Moving to Washington, D.C., Salbi took a job as a translator. She also began working on her bachelor's degree at George Mason University in Virginia. While a student there, international events inspired her to become an activist. Salbi, her second husband Amjad Atallah, and her friends were moved by the plight of women during the Yugoslavian civil war. Because of the Bosnian Serb policy of ethnic cleansing, many women were forced out of their homes and raped, tortured, or otherwise physically harmed....