Taban Shoresh

Founder & CEO at Lotus Flower

Speaker

Former child genocide survivor Taban Shoresh OBE is Founder & CEO of the Lotus Flower, a charity supporting women and girl conflict survivors in Kurdistan, northern Iraq.

With a political activist father during Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1980s Iraq, Taban was imprisoned aged just four, and she and her family escaped being buried alive before Amnesty International flew them to safety in the UK as refugees. In 2014, Taban was horrified to see the ISIS attacks in her homeland, and gave up her successful career to return as an aid worker before establishing the Lotus Flower.

In January 2024, Taban was awarded an OBE for “outstanding” services to refugees and displaced people in Iraq. She is a key figure and regular spokesperson on the international stage for refugee-led initiatives, and recently recorded her first TEDx Talks in Paris and Kurdistan.