The Iraqi campaigner’s Nobel prize is inspiring and much-needed, writes Emma Graham-Harrison, who has reported for the Guardian and Observer on the plight of Yazidi women

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

As a child, Nadia Murad Basee wanted to be a teacher or open a beauty salon, but as she reached the cusp of adulthood Isis swept into her small Iraqi village, and destroyed her world, her family and her dreams.

She was captured in August 2014 and sold into sexual slavery, targeted because her family belonged to the minority Yazidi religion.

Repeatedly raped and repeatedly sold on, she endured months of torture until one captor left a door unlocked. She gambled her life on an escape bid, and made it to safety.

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Then, even as she grappled with the mental and physical aftershocks of extreme trauma, she decided to speak publicly about what she had suffered.

That meant revisiting her torture repeatedly, and in public. But Murad is extraordinarily brave, and her courage is amplified by dignity and clarity of purpose in telling her story.

She called her autobiography The Last Girl – because she wants her campaigning to ensure she is “the last girl in the world with a story like mine”

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She has focused on support for survivors, and a long-term search for justice, calling on the world to collect and preserve evidence that would allow Isis militants to be brought to trial.

It has proved a long and often thankless campaign, even though she has built an extraordinary alliance of supporters, from celebrity lawyer Amal Clooney to Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN under Barack Obama.

The world was appalled when news first seeped out that Isis had revived sexual slavery, and survivors dominated headlines around the world.

But much of that interest turned out to be passing and, as Isis’s self-declared caliphate shrank, the fate of tortured and abducted Yazidi women faded from the news.

The west and the Iraqi government have declared victory in the battle against the group. But thousands of Yazidis are still missing, and thousands more who endured sexual slavery or other violence still live in traumatised limbo in refugee camps, often with the most minimal medical and psychological support.

So it is inspiring to see Murad recognised with perhaps the world’s most prestigious prize. It is an award that celebrates her own extraordinary courage and vital work for women everywhere, and will hopefully cast much-needed light on the plight of the survivors she represents.



