Meet Hawzhin Ziba

Hawzhin Ziba is a Kurdish academic, writer, feminist, and women’s rights advocate. Her commitment to human dignity and equality comes from both her scholarship and her lived experience.

Her family was among the victims of Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign, and she spent part of her childhood in a compulsory camp. Those early experiences taught her what displacement and insecurity mean for families and how conflict places particular burdens on women.

Years later, while helping Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, Hawzhin saw how those burdens could differ for women and men. Alongside war, poverty, and displacement, many women faced restrictive social expectations and deeply rooted patriarchal and tribal traditions that limited their choices, their independence, and their ability to seek help.

These experiences, together with her academic work and decades of advocacy, shaped how Hawzhin thinks about power and women’s rights. Three lines she used early in her advocacy still express what she stands for.

Think Politically!
Who says it has to be this way?
Women’s rights are human rights!

For Hawzhin, that last line means a woman doesn’t have to be someone’s sister, mother, or daughter for her rights to matter. She is a human being. That should be enough.

Hawzhin also has a deep affection for animals, especially dogs. Over the years, she and her husband have taken stray and vulnerable dogs into their home and cared for them.

This website brings together Hawzhin’s ideas and writing with practical resources to recognize violence, find help, and encourage change.