Trivia

When she returned to Norway in the late 1950s after a few years in Canada, she was about to get her doctorate in genetics. But then she married Thorvald Stoltenberg, and Karin interrupted her research career when he joined the foreign service.

She was behind the Norwegian family policy that was formulated in the 1970s. She was one of the pioneers behind the Equality Act and the Partnership Act, and as a bureaucrat she authored the groundbreaking white paper on self-determined abortion.

State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Shipping and the Ministry of Industry, Communications and Information Technology, Head of Mission in the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs, has worked for Norad and the Red Cross, and has been active in the UN's work to improve the position of women in developing countries.