Nobel laureates urge end to sexual violence in war
Peace Prize goes to Yazidi activist, Congolese surgeon
OSLO, Norway — Raped after being forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State group, Iraqi Nadia Murad did not succumb to shame or despair — she spoke out. Surgeon Denis Mukwege treated countless victims of sexual violence in war-torn Congo and told the world of their suffering. Together, t hey were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for drawing attention to how rape and sexual abuse are used as weapons of war.
The award “is partly to highlight the awareness of sexual violence. But the further purpose of this is that nations take responsibility, that communities take responsibility and that the international community take responsibility,” said Berit Reiss- Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that bestowed the $1.01-million prize.
“Dear survivors from all over the world, I would like to tell you that, through this Nobel Prize, the world is listening to you and refusing indifference,” Mukwege, 63, told a news conference outside the hospital he founded in Bukavu in eastern Congo, where he has treated tens of thousands of victims — among them “women, teenage girls, small girls, babies,” he said Friday.
Mukwege said he was in surgery — his second operation of the day — when the announcement came, and he learned about it from patients and colleagues who were crying with joy.
Murad, 25, was one of an estimated 3,000 girls and women from Iraq’s Yazidi minority group who were kidnapped in 2014 by IS militants and sold into sexual slavery. She was raped, beaten and tortured before managing to escape three months later. 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.
In 2016 she was named the United Nations’ first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, and her advocacy helped spur a U.N. investigation that is collecting evidence of war crimes by Islamic State extremists.
In a statement, Murad said she was “incredibly honored” by the prize.
“As a survivor, I am grateful for this opportunity to draw international attention to the plight of the Yazidi people who have suffered unimaginable crimes since the genocide” by ISIS, she said. “Many Yazidis will look upon this prize and think of family members that were lost, are still unaccounted for, and of the 1,300 women and children, which remain in captivity.”
This year’s peace prize comes amid heightened global attention to the sexual abuse of women — in war, in the workplace and in society — that has been highlighted by the #MeToo movement.
In the United States, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also noted that the award comes amid a global reckoning over sexual violence.
Many of the women treated by Mukwege were victims of mass rape in the central African nation that has been wracked by conflict for decades. Armed men tried to kill him in Dr. Denis Mukwege, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, left, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist from Iraq, were honored for their fight against sexual violence in war. 2012, forcing him to temporarily leave the country.
Solange Furaha Lwashiga, a Congolese women’s activist, noted the surgeon’s work repairing not only the physical damage but also the mental scars suffered by the victims, empowering them. “Dr. Mukwege brings smiles and helps repair women from the barbaric acts of men in Congo,” she said.
After the announcement, mobile phone footage showed a smiling Mukwege jostled by dancing, ululating medical colleagues in scrubs in the hospital’s courtyard.
“The importance of Dr. Mukwege’s enduring, dedicated and selfless efforts in this field cannot be overstated. He has repeatedly condemned impunity for mass rape and criticized the Congolese government and other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of sexual violence against women as a strategy and weapon of war,” the Nobel committee said.
Murad’s book, “The Last Girl,” tells of her captivity, the loss of her family and her eventual escape.
The Yazidis are an ancient religious minority, falsely branded as devilworshippers by Sunni Muslim extremists. IS, adopting a radical interpretation of ancient Islamic texts, declared that Yazidi women and even young girls could be taken as sex slaves.
Iraqi President Bahram Saleh praised the award for Murad, saying on Twitter that it was an “honor for all Iraqis who fought terrorism and bigotry.”
Last year’s Peace Prize winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.