Hala - podcast Women, Peace and Security
In this episode, we hear from Hala, Migration and Women’s Policy Advisor at the Embassy of Sudan. After the 2019 revolution, in which around 60% of protesters were women, she decided to leave her studies in Italy and return to work for Sudan’s future. As a Sudanese woman who already worked on the Women, Peace and Security agenda and GBV, she saw the embassy as a place where her voice and position could help open doors for others.
Hala describes Sudanese women as brave and deeply resilient. During the current war, many men stayed behind to guard homes while women fled with children and elderly relatives, rebuilt their lives in new places, and became heads of household and breadwinners. She sees her role not as a hero, but as a facilitator: using her diplomatic position and networks to connect grassroots women, diaspora, donors and international actors, and to push for women’s meaningful participation, including the demand for 40% women at negotiation and peace tables.
She shares powerful, intimate moments: a tea seller who was freed from prison and rebuilt her life through an embassy-supported project; young displaced women organising craft initiatives and hygiene campaigns in IDP shelters; and women’s organisations calling her in panic when activists were kidnapped and ransomed. These stories keep her grounded in the reality of risk, and in the urgency of protection. Not just shelters and relocations, but also safeguarding families, reputations and the space to keep working.
Hala’s commitment is rooted in her mother’s example: a rural teacher who campaigned against FGM, going house to house, speaking with neighbours as equals and linking girls’ bodily integrity to their future, dignity and education. From her, Hala learned that real change starts from within communities, in small conversations and accumulated efforts over time.
Even as she sometimes feels stuck, helpless or afraid there may never be a safe way back home, hope for her lies in what she sees every day: Sudanese people refusing to give up on their country. She believes that, in the end, peace will only come when Sudanese themselves – women, men, youth and elders from all groups – come together, accept their differences, and choose a shared future over a meaningless war.