WYDAD AKREYI

“HUMAN RIGHTS” Award

She is a clinical geneticist and researcher for inherited diseases. She was born into a secular family in Kurdistan region, Iraq.

Her engagement  in the  defence of human rights begins when she was at school where, together with her friends, she was secretly involved in documenting torture and other violations of human rights throughout Iraq, endangering her family and her owns’ life.

She was engaged in advocating for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa region.

After the first Gulf War, when the Iraqi regime regained control of the Kurdistan region through an offensive in spring 1991, she was forced to leave her country.

She is the co-founder of Defend International, an NGO whose mission is to monitor the implementation of preventive measures that are designed to end impunity for the perpetrators of war crimes and to promote peace and democracy through diplomacy.

As a peace activist, she received the 2014 International Pfeffer Peace Award and she dedicated it to the residents of Kobane and Sinjar regions and to the persecuted Christians in the Middle East.