Nadia Murad

ISIS killed her family then sold her as a sex slave. She responded by winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nadia Murad grew up in Kocho, a quiet Yazidi village in northern Iraq.

On August 15, 2014, ISIS stormed in, and turned it into a graveyard.

They separated men from women.

They massacred 600 people in a single day, including Nadia’s mother and six of her brothers.

She was abducted and taken to Mosul, where she was enslaved.

Beaten. Raped. Burned with cigarettes.

Sold from one ISIS fighter to another.

Then, one day, her captor forgot to lock the door. She ran.

A Muslim family smuggled her out of ISIS territory and helped her reach a refugee camp in Kurdistan.

From there, she was resettled to Germany under a program for Yazidi survivors.

In 2016, the UN named her the first-ever Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

That same year, Amal Clooney took on her case and began pursuing legal action against ISIS commanders.

Their goal: to classify what happened to the Yazidis as genocide and prosecute every perpetrator of sexual violence.

By 2017, Nadia had written her memoir: “The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State.”

And in 2018, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

She used the spotlight to build her next act: Nadia’s Initiative.

A nonprofit focused on rebuilding Sinjar and helping survivors of genocide and sexual violence heal.

She partnered with the Mines Advisory Group to demine over 2.6 million square meters of land in Sinjar.

She drafted and lobbied for UN Security Council Resolution 2379 to create an investigative team to collect and preserve ISIS crimes as war crimes and genocide.

She helped pass UN Security Council Resolution 2467 to strengthen global commitments to end sexual violence in conflict.

And she helped design the Murad Code, a global standard to document sexual violence ethically and survivor-first.

Nadia’s Initiative offered vocational training for women.

Set up WASH programs (water, sanitation, hygiene).

Restored educational and healthcare systems.

And ensured every project was survivor-centric and community-led.

Nadia also co-founded the Global Survivors Fund with her fellow Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege, so survivors worldwide could access reparations and redress.

In 2021, the Iraqi Parliament passed the Yazidi Female Survivors Law.

It formally recognized the genocide.

It guaranteed land, jobs, and financial reparations to survivors.

And it only passed because of Nadia’s relentless lobbying.

That same year, she returned to Kocho to bury her mother and two brothers.

In 2022, she addressed the UN again, this time advocating for accountability as prevention.

Because without justice, the cycle never ends.