Building a women’s movement in a country that had outlawed it.
A community-rooted model for women’s rights & inclusive security — cited by the UN as a global case study
During Libya’s revolution, women were keeping communities alive — running supply lines, hospitals and neighborhoods — while being excluded from the formal political and peace process. And the argument used to exclude them was, more often than not, religious.
Dr. Alaa Murabit founded the Voice of Libyan Women at 21, during the 2011 Libyan revolution, building a youth-led national movement that put women at the center of Libya’s political transition and pioneered a community-rooted model for women’s rights and inclusive security. Rather than treating religion as the obstacle, VLW made it the infrastructure: authenticated Islamic teaching, religious authorities, schools and national media became the channels through which women’s rights were argued.
The Voice of Libyan Women “exemplifies grassroots, religious-based activism for women’s rights.”
Excluded from the transition they made possible.
Libya’s revolution could not have happened without women — yet as the country began writing its new rules, women were being written out of them. There was no organized national women’s movement to push back: under the previous regime, one had never been allowed to exist. And because the case against women’s participation was framed in religious terms, the movement Libya needed would have to be built from scratch, mid-conflict — and it would have to be able to argue from within the faith.
The international playbook didn’t work here.
VLW’s first instinct was the standard one: international frameworks, CEDAW commitments, the universal language of human rights. In Libyan homes, mosques and city councils, those arguments did not move people — in a country closed off from the world for four decades, they were heard as foreign impositions rather than shared values, and they conceded the most powerful ground in the debate: religion itself.
Make faith the infrastructure, not the obstacle.
VLW’s answer combined grassroots organizing with policy advocacy — and grounded both in local legitimacy. Every Quranic and Hadith citation used in its campaigns was authenticated; religious authorities were engaged as partners rather than opponents; and the same arguments ran through billboards, television, radio, classrooms and mosques as through ministries and parliament.
Created at 21, mid-revolution.
Dr. Murabit founded the Voice of Libyan Women at 21, during the revolution. In November 2011, VLW convened One Voice — which Devex records as “the first-ever international women’s conference in Libya” — bringing the country’s transitional leadership, foreign ambassadors, parliamentarians and local activists into one room around women’s rights. The Thomson Reuters Foundation would later call her “a visionary and pioneer” helping put women’s rights at the heart of the country’s new political landscape. By Ashoka’s account, the One Voice conference series produced 42 collaborative initiatives — 13 of them implemented by the state.
The Libyan Women’s Charter.
VLW travelled to 35 cities across Libya and asked women themselves what they wanted from their new country. Ashoka records that VLW “gathered women’s opinions on their constitutional needs through workshops, town hall meetings, roundtables and seminars” — run through schools, mosques, local municipalities and civil-society organizations, with questions translated into signs for women who could not read. Those demands were aggregated into the Libyan Women’s Charter, a tool for national constitutional advocacy later selected as one of the Women Deliver 50 global ideas improving the lives of women and girls.
In the same period, VLW and other women’s organizations criticized the draft election law and proposed an alternative, inclusive law; the law ultimately adopted required party lists to alternate male and female candidates, and — as Human Rights Watch documented — more than 600 women stood in the 2012 elections.
Purple Hijab Day: proving the message could travel.
Before building a national campaign, VLW tested whether a faith-framed case against violence would actually carry. Dr. Murabit introduced International Purple Hijab Day to Libya — an annual public campaign against domestic violence — and by Ashoka’s account “more than 20,000 women and men from 17 cities participated.” VLW reported that its survey results led the Prime Minister to publicly condemn domestic violence and support legislative change. The message had national salience. Now it could be scaled.
Contesting the rules of the new Libya.
In December 2012, VLW jointly produced formal recommendations with the Institute for Inclusive Security and IFES — built with 26 Libyan civil-society activists from all three regions — on ensuring women’s inclusion in the constitution-drafting process. In January 2013, a VLW conference recommended 35% female representation in the Constituent Assembly, a demand Human Rights Watch documented as part of the coalition petitioning the head of the new parliament. The second One Voice conference drew 150 activists from more than 25 cities to focus on women’s role in the constitution and security.
VLW trained 7 of the 33 women elected to Libya’s first post-revolution parliament and helped establish its only cross-party women’s caucus.
A national campaign, with religious authority behind it.
Built on VLW’s original research into how Libyan women actually experienced security, Noor launched in July 2013 as a national campaign against domestic violence, street harassment and the public denigration of women — 33 billboards across Libya, alongside national television and radio, every religious citation authenticated. It was supported by Dar Al-Ifta, Libya’s highest religious institution, alongside the Ministry of Culture and Civil Society, the Canadian Embassy and local private-sector partners. Earlier, VLW’s Purple Hijab Day had involved 20,000+ people across 17 cities; VLW reported that its survey results led the Prime Minister to publicly condemn domestic violence and support legislative change.
Carried into Libya’s institutions.
Ashoka’s institutional assessment records that Noor “reached and educated more than 50,000 Libyan women and men, visiting over 300 middle and high schools” in 30 cities, carried by “700 volunteers across 35 cities.” VLW worked with five national ministries, the Libyan Business Council, 35 municipal councils and Dar Al-Ifta — and Ashoka credits its women’s-security work with the Libyan Minister of Justice, for the first time, “recognizing victims of sexual violence as soldiers of war,” fully covering their education and healthcare expenses.
“In a country where a woman’s safety had been treated as a private family matter, Noor made it something we all said aloud.”
“For the first time, a Libyan woman being harmed at home could hear that it was wrong in the language her family would trust — their faith’s.”
“The case for a woman leading now came from inside our own community.”
“A woman in Benghazi or Sabha did not need to read a UN resolution to know the work had reached her — she saw it on a billboard, heard it on the radio, and recognized the scripture behind it.”
From Libyan homes to the Security Council.
In July 2014, Dr. Murabit was selected as an advisor for the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325: Women, Peace and Security — marking its 15-year review and supporting other organizations doing this work worldwide. The UN’s landmark Global Study on Resolution 1325 gave Noor its own case study, describing a campaign that “exemplifies grassroots, religious-based activism for women’s rights” and showed how advocates can “contribute to societal transformation.” In October 2015, she addressed the Security Council’s 15th-anniversary debate on Women, Peace & Security, describing the work as Resolution 2242 was unanimously adopted.
Legitimacy is built from within communities — the principle proven at VLW runs through all of Dr. Murabit’s later work.
A Libyan method, replicated globally.
Nearly fifteen years after VLW was founded, a 2025 Istituto Affari Internazionali review of the Women, Peace & Security agenda still identified Voice of Libyan Women among the Libyan civil-society networks that had played an “instrumental” role in expanding women’s participation, specifically documenting Noor’s use of Islamic discourse and its mobilization across 35 cities.
But the work did not disappear with the institution. Noor had already entered the UN’s global Women, Peace & Security evidence base as a case study in grassroots, faith-rooted women’s-rights advocacy. VLW programs including Noor were replicated internationally, and the model is cited in ongoing scholarship as evidence that religion can be used to expand — rather than constrain — women’s political agency.
What began in Libyan homes, schools, mosques and municipal councils became an international case study in how local legitimacy, faith and grassroots organizing can shift who gets to participate in peace and political transition.
VLW still identified as instrumental to Libya’s Women, Peace & Security trajectory.
Read →Alaa didn’t simply advocate for Libyan women. At 21, she built a national movement during a political vacuum; developed a distinctive methodology combining Islamic legitimacy, grassroots research and formal policy advocacy; demonstrated it at national scale; moved that work into Libya’s institutions; and the methodology was subsequently documented as an international case study.
Built by a movement.
Voice of Libyan Women was never the work of one person. Dr. Murabit founded and led it alongside hundreds of Libyan women and men who organized across cities, schools, communities and institutions — often under extraordinary political and security pressure. Their collective leadership is what turned an idea founded during the revolution into a national movement.
“Her organization has achieved tremendous tangible impact for women both in politics and society.”
From the archive.
The independent record of the Voice of Libyan Women, as it was documented at the time.
“FOCUS ON: Libya — The ‘Noor’ Campaign… exemplifies grassroots, religious-based activism for women’s rights.”
The UN’s landmark study of Resolution 1325 selects Noor’s methodology as an instructive international case, crediting it with contributing to “societal transformation.”
Read the chapter →“A visionary and pioneer in Libya” — helping put women’s rights “at the heart of the country’s new political landscape.”
The contemporaneous award profile, with Queen Noor’s presentation of the award to Dr. Murabit.
Read the profile →“A Revolution for All: Women’s Rights in the New Libya.”
Documents VLW’s constitutional advocacy, including the January 2013 conference recommending 35% female representation in the Constituent Assembly.
Read the report →A national campaign against violence toward women — billboards in some 20 cities, television and radio.
Contemporaneous reporting on Noor’s launch, its origins in VLW’s security research, and its backing from Dar Al-Ifta and national ministries.
Read the coverage →Recommendations for ensuring women’s inclusion in the Libyan constitution-drafting process.
Formal recommendations produced with VLW, built with 26 Libyan civil-society activists from all three regions.
Read the recommendations →700 volunteers across 35 cities; 50,000+ reached; 300+ schools; five national ministries engaged.
Ashoka’s institutional assessment of VLW’s footprint, from municipal councils to the Justice Ministry’s recognition of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
Read the profile →The Libyan Women’s Charter, named among 50 global ideas improving the lives of women and girls.
Selected alongside initiatives such as Girls Not Brides and Every Woman Every Child.
View the list →Dr. Murabit briefs the Security Council as Resolution 2242 on Women, Peace & Security is unanimously adopted.
Official UN meeting coverage recording Noor — “led by women” and built with men and religious actors — described in the Council chamber.
Read the coverage →“VLW, the organizer of first-ever international women’s conference in Libya…”
Contemporaneous Devex reporting on VLW’s founding, its seminars in schools, mosques, workplaces and universities, and its national university debates.
Read the profile →“Civil society networks such as Voice of Libyan Women … have played instrumental roles in this process.”
Nearly fifteen years after VLW was founded, IAI’s retrospective on the Women, Peace & Security agenda identifies VLW as instrumental to women’s participation in Libya and documents Noor’s mobilization across 35 cities using Islamic discourse to advance women’s rights.
Read the report →For researchers, journalists, or partners seeking additional archival materials relating to the Voice of Libyan Women — original campaign materials, the Women’s Charter, Noor billboards and broadcast advertisements — please get in touch.
The methodology moved from Libyan homes, schools and mosques — into national institutions, and into the global architecture of peace and security.