Taban Shoresh never spoke about surviving genocide in Iraq. Growing up in the UK as a refugee, she tried to be “as British as possible” and avoid her painful past. It wasn’t until the Kurdistan Regional Government asked her to speak in the House of Lords for Genocide Remembrance Day in 2014 that something clicked.
“I realized that I needed to be doing something more connected to my past,” Shoresh, 41, said.
Olivia Cuthbert
Olivia is a freelance journalist and has been covering the Middle East for 15 years with a focus on women’s rights, international development, culture and education in the Arab world. Her work has been published in outlets including The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, Middle East Eye, openDemocracy and Wired magazine. She has a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford and speaks a little Arabic, but it’s a work in progress.