Nadia Murad - ISIS Captive Turned Nobel Prize Winner

*Trigger warning: the subject of this article is activism against female sexual slavery.

The Middle East has a history of being a highly contested place, with political and sectarian issues causing minorities of all types to be caught in the crossfires. The Yazidis, indigenous to modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, are one of these groups. As the Yazidi population has fallen significantly through systematic targeting, there is a voice that has risen to fight the mass subjugation and incarceration that they are undergoing.

Nadia Murad was born in Kojo, south of the Sinjar region in Northern Iraq. Sinjar is a Yazidi settlement, and Nadia spent much of her childhood in these areas. She harbored dreams of starting her own beauty salon and living with her family within her community. However, in 2014, as ISIS was laying claim to certain segments of the Levant (a region in the Western Mediterranean that includes areas the Yazidis have inhabited for hundreds of years), Nadia’s village was attacked.   

ISIS tried to systematically expunge their existence. Their places of worship, agricultural lands, and other key facets of their civilization were destroyed and hundreds of people massacred. Women were abducted, raped, sexually abused, and sold into sex slavery. Nadia endured this brutality for three months, after which she escaped to a refugee camp. As fortune would have it, she was offered the opportunity to move to Germany, where she now resides—working tirelessly to assist Yazidi women and children who are still caught in the conflict.

Nadia was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, for their efforts towards fighting sexual assault during wartime.

Nadia has started two initiatives: The Sinjar Action Fund (SAF) and the Survivors Action Response (SAR), both of which focus on community building. SAF focuses on the region very close to her ancestral home, which requires rebuilding. She advocates for a localized approach, with local knowledge and participation crucial for success. Nadia kicked off the fund by donating all of her Nobel Peace Prize money. SAR focuses on justice for sexual violence victims. Nadia feels that much of the healing is associated with this attainment of justice, which is one of her key goals form her advocacy efforts. Even though many of the initial SAR efforts have revolved around Yazidi communities, this initiative is a platform for all those who have suffered from sexual violence and strive for due process.

Nadia’s story is an inspiration not only to TCKs, but to all migrants who have been cast into a foreign culture out of necessity rather than choice. She is also a living testament to the universal values and ethics that we all have, which cut across ethnicity, religion, nationality, or any other denomination.            

Has your TCK background helped you advocate for migrant communities?

Learn more:

Check out Nadia Murad’s Peace Prize lecture. 

Read more about the social initiatives started by Nadia Murad.

Here’s how Nadia confronted her past and used it for her human rights campaigning.