Katrin Michael
Iraq

Katrin Michael is from the Kurdish area in northern Iraq and works for the Washington, DC, Kurdish Institute, a nonprofit research and educational organization for Kurdish people worldwide. A member of the Iraqi opposition in the United States, she has worked to increase women's presence in domestic and international resistance movements. Ms. Michael has long struggled against the current Iraqi regime. In 1982, she joined the Kurdish armed resistance, traveling in disguise to Baghdad with the intention of organizing action against the Iraqi regime. During 20 years of exile, Ms. Michael has lived in refugee camps, traveled to Syria on foot, fled terrorist attacks in Algeria, crossed the Greek border with the help of smugglers, and finally settled in the United States.

Ms. Michael's peace-building activities include:

• authoring From Violence to Non-Violence (currently in publication), an autobiographical account of 20 years in exile, which includes her experiences in the 1988 chemical and biological bombings of the Iraqi Kurdistan region that forced one million Kurds to flee the country;
• serving as a political advisor to Kurdish women for seven years;
• helping develop relevant international human rights and humanitarian standards and supporting humanitarian efforts and the development of civil society; and
• advocating effective, achievable solutions to problems facing Kurds and neighboring peoples.