Prisoner of Hope

Awake At Night

"I understand the people I speak to in my current job, because I've been in their shoes: I've been arbitrarily detained. I've experienced enforced disappearance.” Michelle Bachelet was the first female President of Chile for the Socialist Party of Chile (2006–10; 2014–18). She is now the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Michelle’s father served in the Air Force and, in 1973 after being taken prisoner during a coup that overthrew the government, he died in jail at just 50 years old. Michelle shares the harrowing stories of how she and her mother were later taken to a clandestine detention centre, her exile in Australia and East Germany, her motivations to study medicine and return to Chile and why, despite everything, she remains a prisoner of hope.

As she herself believes: “We may not be all responsible for the past, but we are responsible for the future.”