Mahabad Qeredaxî (1966 - 2020)

Mahabad Qeredaxî was a Kurdish women’s rights activist she was born in 1966 in the district of Kifri close to Kirkuk. Despite being a Kurdish activist Mahabad was a poet, writer, and translator. Mahabad xan’s first poetry collection was published in 1980, other than that she has more than 23 books published that includes poems and novels in both Kurdish and Swedish.

Mahabad xan was imprisoned by the Ba’athist regime when she was only 14 because of her work. In 1993, she fled to Sweden where she continued to write and publish books of poetry, novels, and sociological research. After the 2003 fall of the former regime, Qeredaxî returned to the Kurdistan Region. After meetings with then-regional KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, she became his advisor on gender equality and women’s affairs.

She sadly died in October 2020 in Erbil, South Kurdistan while being treated for COVID-19. Mahabad Qeredaxî was an intellectual woman who advocated for women's rights and gender equality. As a strong, patriotic writer, she devoted more than half of her life to achieving women's legitimate rights and aims in Kurdistan. Her death is a great loss, and her works will remain essential in the field of women’s rights, and gender.