Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq, survivor of genocide and human trafficking. She is also Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations (UNODC), and author of ‘The Last Girl‘.
Murad is one of the 5000 Yazidi ethno-religious minority women abducted and raped by Islamic State (ISIS) fighters and On December 2015, she briefed the United Nations Security Council on the issue of human trafficking and conflict.
Earlier this month, Nadia Murad published an article on the New York Times, telling her story and calling for the International Community to protect lives of innocent people. Selected extracts of her post:
Three years ago I was one of thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped by the Islamic State and sold into slavery. I endured rape, torture and humiliation at the hands of multiple militants before I escaped. I was relatively lucky; many Yazidis went through worse than I did and for much longer. Many are still missing. Many have been killed.
The militants then took the women and boys to Sinjar and Solagh, a nearby town. My 61-year-old mother, Shami, and the other older women were killed. The younger women, including myself, were taken to slave markets throughout Iraq and Syria. The boys, including one of my nephews, 11-year-old Malik, were forced to join the terrorist group and brainwashed.
Rather than emphasizing our victimhood, that connection to other women empowers us to take back our lives and to fight for our community’s future. Like those brave women, Yazidi survivors are much more than victims. We are activists and we need more than empathy.
Read Murad’s full article here.
