From the desk of Liv Ullmann, co-founder and honorary chair
August, 2025
Dear Friends,
The other day I was watching the news. In Gaza, a small boy, maybe seven or eight years old, was standing over his mother, crying. They had been looking for food. The little boy screamed, “My mother said to me ‘watch out,’ and then, as I turned to see what she was warning me to watch out for, a bullet went right through her head. My mother is dead.”
The greatest responsibility a mother feels, in her life, is to protect her children. From birth, she is committed by love, to their safety and well-being. During war and displacement, it is so much more difficult to be a mother, and to be a child.
As I witnessed this little boy’s horror and confusion, I also saw my own inability to comfort him, which is the tragedy of silence and inaction.
Thirty-six years ago, I helped to found the Women’s Refugee Commission. I travelled many times to the world’s worst crises, visiting those who were displaced, and I recognized, in each woman’s face, fear coupled with the strength needed for the care and protection of their families. It was those faces and those voices that defined the WRC—created so that all of us would listen to them, hear them, not forget them, and never relent in helping them find security and peace.
We met that challenge for decades, through partnerships with local and global organizations, meeting with political leaders and influencing donors. As the first organization to speak out, our work redefined the face of the displaced as mostly women and children, with specific needs. We were led by their voices and their courage.
But now, the world seems to be turning away from these women displaced not only by war, but by darkness and despair worse than we could have anticipated three decades ago.
Since then, millions of women have been forced to flee their homes and homelands—journeying up the spine of Central America, urging their babies forward in the hope of a safer life in the United States, or crossing the rough seas to Europe. Economic hardship followed them as they searched for shelter and sanctuary. But today, with all paths to safety and any possibility for escape essentially closed, women face unthinkable choices and unimaginable violence.
Caught in devastating wars in Sudan and the DRC, mothers must confront the daily threats and traumas of witnessing their daughters raped, daughters witnessing their mothers. And most recently, in dungeon-like US detention centers, pregnant women are denied access to critical health care. Who is there to protect them?
But like all of us, they have a primal urge to care for their children, their grandchildren, their neighbors’ children: so they keep moving. Getting up each day and pressing on against the weight of the world toward a better tomorrow for their families and their communities.
Among the Sudanese women who shared their stories with WRC in the recent report “In Their Own Voices” were two mothers, a journalist and a humanitarian worker:
“War taught me to be the pillar of the house, and the Sudanese woman is the foundation and the head of the family. I love my country…As women we are strong but face many hardships and we don’t have many options.”
“They had a safe room where I worked in case the fighting escalated, but it did not allow children. This was the moment when I decided I must leave with my children even if it meant I might leave my job. After all, I work for my children…On the journey, I ran out of food for my children and had to look for water. I did not feel safe. I always thought about what would happen to me or to my daughter. We slept on the streets. I used to stay up all night to protect myself and my children…”
Many of us are still haunted by the family separations that took place among those seeking asylum in the US. To this day many mothers have still not been reunited with their children. And today, many more are being torn from each other’s arms. The words of one mother stay with me, as her grief stays with her:
“I have this pain that lives inside my heart. It’s so hard to talk about this situation with anyone because years have passed and I feel the pain as though it were yesterday. It’s just burned into your mind, and into your heart. It’s something that can never fill the void inside of you.”
Who are we if we do not lend our support to these women–as much as our means allow–to give them their chance at life?
By supporting WRC, you have enabled our lifesaving, life-changing work to protect and empower forcibly displaced women and children, and to strengthen the international response to their needs. But now, we are at a crossroads. We confront the difficulty of raising resources and awareness as governments and institutions retreat from their funding promises and humanitarian principles.
More than ever, WRC must rely on the steadfast support of people like you. To multiply the force of our community impact, a group of generous WRC board members and commissioners have pledged to match all donations up to $150,000 received on or before August 30, 2025.
GIVE NOW
Together, today, we must lead with the same tenacity, perseverance, and focus that we have for three decades–guided by the never-ending strength and bravery of displaced women. We will not abandon them now when they need our voices the most.
We cannot let another mother’s cry to go unanswered. Who will be there for her, if not us?
We are proud to stand with you as champions for displaced women at this pivotal time when their rights are under attack and their lives are at risk. On behalf of us all at WRC, we are deeply grateful for your enduring support and solidarity.
With heartfelt thanks,
Liv Ullmann
Co-founder and Honorary Chair
