Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad is a survivor of the 2014 genocide of the Yazidi people by ISIS in Northern Iraq. Over 600 people from her village were murdered including Ms. Murad’s mother and six of her brothers and stepbrothers. Ms. Murad was one of more than 6,700 Yazidi women and girls taken prisoner by the Islamic State in Iraq. She was held as a slave in the city of Mosul, where she experienced repeated sexual violence. She successfully escaped from her captors and was taken in by a neighboring family who was able to smuggle her out of the Islamic State controlled area, allowing her to make her way to a refugee camp in northern Iraq.

In 2016, Ms. Murad was named the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human trafficking of the United Nations (UNODC). As part of her current role as an ambassador, Ms. Murad participates in global and local advocacy initiatives to bring awareness of human trafficking and refugees. To help survivors rebuild their lives, she plays a central role in developing the Fund for Survivors of Conflict Related Sexual Violence, recently endorsed by the UN Secretary General and adopted by the UN Security Council (Resolution 2467). Since 2015, she has been working to bring ISIS before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

In 2018, Ms. Murad received the Nobel Peace Prize and also was the recipient of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize.

As a survivor of war time sexual violence, Ms. Murad has rejected the social mores that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses they have experienced. Victims of wartime rape typically live with the double burden of being raped and shunned by their shattered communities. Ms. Murad has demonstrated enormous courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking out on behalf of other victims.

Ms. Murad wrote about her experiences with war and sexual violence in The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State (Crown/Penguin 2017), which was designated a New York Times Editors’ Choice.

Ms. Murad is the President and Chairman of Nadia’s Initiative, a 501(c)(3) organization aimed at increasing advocacy for women and minorities and stabilizing and redeveloping communities in crisis. Through this organization Ms. Murad leads an international team that actively works to rebuild communities in crisis, advocates for survivors of sexual violence, and works for a world free from genocide.