In 2014, Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi, was kidnapped from her home by ISIS militants and forced into sexual slavery, along with 6,000 other Yazidi women and girls. Her mother and six of her brothers and half-brothers were killed during the genocide. She managed to escape after three months and has since become a human rights activist, speaking out about human trafficking and sexual violence. She founded Nadia’s Initiative, an organization dedicated to “helping women and children victimized by genocide, mass atrocities and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their lives and communities.”
In 2018, Murad became the first Iraqi and Yazidi to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. In 2020, she became an advocate for the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
