Nadia Murad
نادية مراد
Also known as: Nobel Peace Prize 2018
Biography
Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq who survived ISIS captivity and became the world's most prominent advocate for Yazidi victims of the Islamic State's genocide. In August 2014, ISIS attacked her village of Kocho in Iraq's Sinjar region — killing the men and older women and enslaving hundreds of young women as sex slaves (sabaya). Murad was among those enslaved, subjected to sexual violence, and held in Mosul and Syria before escaping in November 2014. She became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, testified at the UN Security Council, and in 2018 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege. Though Iraqi, her story is inseparable from Syria: ISIS's caliphate spread across both countries, and many Yazidi women were held in Syrian cities.