The Yazidi Iraqi anti-rape activist, Nadia Murad, won the Nobel Peace Prize 2018 jointly with Congolese obstetrician, Denis Mukwege. Murad who has survived torture and rape by ISIS spearheaded campaigns calling for freedom for Yazidis, noting that some 331 organizations and individuals were nominated for this year’s prize. The Nobel Prize ceremony was held in Oslo in recognition of efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, according to Nobel Committee chairwoman, Berit Reiss-Anderson. Murad and Mukwege, she said, have largely contributed to drawing the attention of the international community and fighting war crimes. To recall, Murad was back in August 2014 a young woman with ordinary dreams, until ISIS attacked her village, Kojo, near Sinjar mountains in Ninawa province north of Iraq. Later, she became a staunch rights advocate and militant to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Murad has, in the past, received several prizes, including the title of the first ambassador of the UN for victims of human trafficking, the EU Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought and Vaclav Havel human rights prize. (Al Diyar, Al Mustaqbal, An Nahar, October 6, 2018)
