Iraqi Nobel laureate vows to work for peace
baghdad — Iraqi activist Nadia Murad met her country’s president in Baghdad on Wednesday after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy on behalf of victims of wartime sexual violence.
Murad, a member of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, was among thousands of women and girls who were captured and forced into sexual slavery by Daesh militants in 2014. She became an activist on behalf of women and girls after escaping and finding refuge in Germany.
She arrived in Baghdad from Stockholm on Wednesday, and was received by President Barham Salih.
“There is no meaning to the Nobel prize without the ongoing work for the sake of peace,” Murad told group of community leaders and foreign ambassadors at the presidential palace.
Murad called on the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition to search for the missing Yazidi women and girls. She also called on the government to rebuild her hometown, Sinjar. More than 80 per cent of Yazidis are still living in displacement camps.
In her Nobel lecture on Monday, Murad urged world leaders to put an end to sexual violence, saying “the only prize in the world that can restore our dignity is justice and the prosecution of criminals”.
Iraq’s president said Murad “embodies the suffering and tragedies Iraqis have gone through in the past and represents the courage and determination to defend rights in the face of the oppressor”.