What Being on the Frontlines of Fighting for Gender Equality in Iraq Is Like During COVID-19

Global Citizen, 15th April 2020

On a normal day, Shan Sherwan Hussein can be found delivering essential classes to women who have been internally-displaced from their homes in Iraq, or who are refugees as a result of the conflict in neighboring Syria.

She works for the NGO Women for Women International and her focus is on empowering women, both socially and economically, by providing numeracy and business classes, and start-up advice to those setting up their own businesses, among other programs. 

But her work as women’s economic empowerment manager has, like many jobs, been transformed by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. She tells Global Citizen what it’s like to be on the frontlines during this crisis and how it has affected the women she works with.