Victim of sexual violence

Nadia Murad grew up in the village of Kojo in northern Iraq. She is a member of the Yazidi minority. The Yazidi religion is a mixture of Islam, Christianity and ancient Iranian religions.

In 2014, militants from the Islamic State (IS) conquered Kojo and massacred several hundred men and elderly women. The IS claimed that the Yazidi were devil worshippers who had to be exterminated.

Twenty-one-year-old Nadia Murad and other young women were abducted and held as sex slaves. Nadia was raped and threatened with execution unless she converted to the IS version of Islam.

After some months, Nadia Murad managed to escape, and in 2015 arrived in Germany. There she chose to tell the international community what she had suffered. Murad hoped that doing so would result in her abusers being brought to justice for their crimes.

In 2016, she was appointed the United Nations’ first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. In 2008, the United Nations determined that use of sexual violence in war and conflict is a war crime. Nadia Murad has written an autobiography, “The Last Girl”. By recounting the atrocities perpetrated against her, she seeks to help ensure that future generations of girls and young women do not become victims of sexual violence in war.