Congo doctor, Yazidi campaigner win 2018 Nobel Peace Prize
OSLO: Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work in fighting sexual violence in conflicts around the world.
The pair won the award “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict,” Nobel Committee Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said in unveiling the winners in Oslo.
“A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognized and protected in war,” she said.
One a doctor, the other a victim of rape, both have come to represent the struggle against a global scourge which goes well beyond any single conflict, as the #MeToo movement has shown.
The prize was announced as #MeToo marks its first anniversary after a year in which allegations of sexual abuse, rape and harassment have toppled powerful men.
By recognizing the pair’s work, the Nobel committee has placed a spotlight on the use of sexual violence in war as a global problem.
Mukwege, 63, was recognized for two decades of work to help women recover from the violence and trauma of sexual abuse and rape in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Alongside Mukwege, the committee honored Murad, a 25-year- old Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community who in 2014 was kidnapped by Islamic State militants and endured three months as a sex slave before managing to escape.
“The first thing they did was force us to convert to Islam,” she told Agence FrancePresse two years ago. “After conversion, they did whatever they wanted.”
Mukwege and Murad will share the prestigious prize of a gold medal, a diploma and a check for 9 million Swedish kronor — almost $1 million.
The award will be presented at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and scientist who died in 1896.