Congolese Mukwege, Iraq's Murad win 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

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Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist helping victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by the ISIL, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it had awarded them the prize for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

"Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," it said in its citation.

Denis Mukwege is photographed at Lalish temple in a valley near Dohuk, 430 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad. /VCG Photo

Mukwege heads the Panzi Hospital in the eastern Congolese city of Bukavu. Opened in 1999, the clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery from sexual violence.

He had devoted his life to defending these victims, the citation said.

Murad is an advocate for the Yazidi minority in Iraq and for refugee and women's rights in general. She was enslaved and raped by ISIL fighters in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014.

She was a witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others, the citation said.

Denis Mukwege chats with a Pakistani Monusco soldier tasked with the protection at Panzi Hospital, in the outskirts of Bukavu, the Democratic Republic of Congo. /VCG Photo

"Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions," it said.

'Rape and nothing else'

Nadia Murad poses for a portrait at United Nations headquarters in New York, March 9, 2017. /VCG Photo

Murad was 21-years-old when ISIL militants attacked the village she grew up in northern Iraq in 2014. Six of her brothers and her mother were among those killed by the militants.

Murad, along with many of the other young women in her village, was taken into captivity by the militants, and sold repeatedly for sex as part of the ISIL's slave trade.

She eventually escaped captivity with the help of a Sunni Muslim family in Mosul, the group's de facto capital in Iraq, and became an advocate for the rights of her community around the world.

Yazidi survivor and United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human trafficking, Nadia Murad, greets Kurdish Peshmerga fighters at a defensive point near Sinjar, Iraq, June 1, 2017. /VCG Photo

In 2017, Murad published a memoir of her ordeal, "The Last Girl." In it, she recounted in harrowing detail her months in captivity, her escape and her journey to activism.

"At some point, there was rape and nothing else. This becomes your normal day," she wrote.

The militants' attack on Yazidi communities in northern Iraq was part of what the United Nations has called a genocidal campaign launched by the Sunni militants against the religious minority.

The award of the prize follows a year in which the abuse and mistreatment of women in all walks of life across the globe has been a focus of attention.

Asked whether the #MeToo movement, a prominent women's rights activist forum, was an inspiration for this year's prize, Nobel Committee Chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said: "MeToo and war crimes are not quite the same. But they have in common that they see the suffering of women, the abuse of women and that it is important that women leave the concept of shame behind and speak up."

The prize will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.

(Top image: A combination picture shows the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters