Ligestillingsudvalget 2011-12, Udenrigsudvalget 2011-12, Det Udenrigspolitiske Nævn 2011-12
LIU Alm.del Bilag 2, URU Alm.del Bilag 2, UPN Alm.del Bilag 5
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Biographical Sketch: Michelle Bachelet
Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, was born inSantiago, Chile, on 29 September 1951. She has three children.She is trained as a doctor, with graduate studies in Military Sciences. She speaks Spanish andEnglish and has a command in German, French and Portuguese.Her father, Alberto Bachelet, was a General in the Chilean Air Force under Salvador Allende. Afterthe coup of General Augusto Pinochet Alberto Bachelet died in a Chilean prison in 1974 havingsuffered a heart attack after being tortured doing his imprisonment. Despite the traumatic eventsthat affected her family and her country, Michelle Bachelet continued studying and participating inChile’s Socialist Party. In 1975 Michelle Bachelet and her mother were arrested by the Pinochetsecret police.After their arrest and subsequent release Bachelet and her mother traveled to Australia as exiles.From there, they continued on to East Germany, where Michelle Bachelet studied German, inLeipzig, and then enrolled at Humboldt University medical school in Berlin. While living inGermany, she married a fellow Chilean exile. Michelle Bachelet returned to Chile in 1979, andcontinued her studies in medicine at the University of Chile. She graduated as a surgeon in 1982.Once democracy was restored in 1990 Michelle Bachelet worked in the health sector of Chile for anumber of years.In 2000, Michelle Bachelet was named Minister of Health in President Ricardo Lagos’administration. She found herself at the head of an organization with more than 70,000 workers anda nationwide network of public health services; it also supervises, either directly or indirectly,autonomous municipal health services and the private healthcare system.On 7 January 2002, President Lagos reshuffled his Cabinet and moved Michelle Bachelet to head ofthe Defence Ministry. She was the first woman both in Chile and in Latin America to hold such aposition. On 1 October 2004, Michelle Bachelet resigned from the Defence Ministry. She was thenfree to fully focus on her presidential campaignIn a run-off presidential election held on 15 February 2006, Michelle Bachelet won 53.49 percent ofthe vote and thus became the first woman to be elected President in the history of the Republic ofChile. She held this office for four years, serving her full term, which ended on 11 March 2010 withthe greatest approval from people in the history of Chile.
