Nobel laureates demand end to sexual violence
Victim, surgeon decry use of rape as a weapon of war.
An Iraqi OSLO, NORWAY — woman who became a global advocate for victims after being raped and tortured by Islamic State militants and a Congolese surgeon who has treated countless rape victims in his war-torn nation won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for fighting to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Dr. Denis Mukwege was in surgery — his second operation of the day — at the hospital he founded in 1999 in Congo’s eastern Bukavu region when the announcement came Friday he and Nadia Murad had won the prestigious prize. He learned of it because he heard colleagues and patients crying at the news.
The 63-year-old gynecological surgeon said for nearly 20 years he has witnessed war crimes “against women, teenage girls, small girls, babies.”
“Dear survivors around the world, I want to tell you that through this prize the world is listening to you and refuses indifference,” he said. “We hope that the world will no longer delay taking action in your favor, with force and determination, because the survival of humanity depends on you. It’s you women who carry humanity.”
Murad was one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women kidnapped in 2014 by IS militants in Iraq and sold into sex slavery. At 19, she was raped, beaten and tortured before managing to escape after three months. After getting treatment in Germany, she chose to speak to the world about the horrors faced by Yazidi women, regardless of the stigma in her culture surrounding rape.
At 23, she was named the U.N.’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.
This year’s peace prize announcement comes amid a heightened attention to the sexual abuse of women — in war, in the workplace and in society — that has been highlighted by the “#MeToo” movement.
“We want to send a message that women who constitute half the population in those communities actually are used as weapons and that they need protection, and that the perpetrators have to be prosecuted and held responsible,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
“#MeToo and war crimes is not quite the same thing, but they do, however, have in common that it is important to see the suffering of women,” she said.
Rights advocates were thrilled with the choice of this year’s winners.
“Dr. Mukwege brings smiles and helps repair women from the barbaric acts of men in Congo,” said Solange Furaha Lwashiga, a Congolese women’s activist.
“We’re talking (about) two ordinary citizens, at one level, who show that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. And they’ve shown a kind of political will that we’re not seeing in our political leaders right now to make a difference,” said Kumi Naidoo, head of Amnesty International.
Many of the women treated by Mukwege were victims of gang rape in the central African nation that has been wracked by conflict for decades. Armed men tried to kill him in 2012, forcing him to temporarily leave the country.
“This particular type of war crime has been more invisible, because the victims have such a stigma and no one is willing to speak up on their behalf,” Reiss-Andersen told The Associated Press.
Both honorees are the first from their countries to receive a Nobel Prize and will split the award, which is worth 9 million Swedish kronor ($1.01 million).
Murad’s book, “The Last Girl,” tells of her captivity, the loss of her family and her eventual escape.
Last year’s Peace Prize winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.