Two Yazidi women who were taken as sex slaves by the
Isis terror group have been awarded the most prestigious human
rights award in Europe.
Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar were captured by Isis fighters
after the group launched a major assault across northern Iraq in
2014. Both now campaign for Yazidi women and were jointly awarded
the Sakharov prize on Wednesday.
The Sakharov award is named in honour of the nuclear physicist
and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. The annual freedom of
thought prize recognises exceptional contribution to the global
fight for human rights.
The prize money is £45,000 which will be awarded during a
ceremony in December.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz said awarding the
honour to both women is "a very symbolic and significant decision
to support these two survivors who came to Europe as refugees".
Taken by Isis, trafficked and sold into sexual slavery, Murad,
23, has survived incomprehensible brutality to become one of the
most important voices for the Yazidi community.
She has appeared before the United Nations in New York and is
now an ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking
for the UN’s Drugs and Crime body. Murad is represented by Amal
Clooney, who, in a damning speech to the United Nations, condemned
the inaction taken by leaders to stop what she called a genocide
being committed by Isis. She said women like Murad had their bodies
"sold and used as battlefields" and continue to suffer greatly in
regions under Isis control.
Bashar, 18, was captured alongside Murad and escaped in March.
She suffered injuries to her face and is now blind in one eye after
stepping over a land mine as she tried to flee her captors.
Murad was a guest speaker at Tina Brown’s Women in the World
summit earlier in October, where she described how dramatically her
life had changed since Isis launched its insurgency across northern
Iraq.
"I worked on a farm, we had a simple life," she said. "We were
poor, but we were very happy before Daesh came.
"When they came, they attacked the Yazidis. They said that
Yazidis were not people of the book and they wanted to wipe them
out. And this is what they did to us: they killed more than 5,000
people. They also took more than 6,000 women and children into
captivity. "
Isis has decreed non-Muslim women may be taken and sold as sex
slaves by fighters. More than 3,000 Yazidi women and children
remain in captivity.
"I was one of the girls taken in the group who were over the age
of nine. When they took us they told us we were the sabia [slaves].
They took us to Mosul and then in Mosul they separated us and they
committed all types of rape against us. They took us for that.
"The women who were old, who they were not interested in having
sex with, were killed, including my mother. My sisters-in-law and
nieces were taken to be sex slaves."
Murad has met with many Yazidi refugees living in camps in
neighbouring countries and their stories of captivity, she says,
are filled with experiences even more barbaric than her own.
"I met many victims when I was at the refugee camp in Kurdistan
and I spoke with a lot of the victims who were brought with me to
Germany. When you listen to these women and they tell you about the
crimes they have seen, the rapes on large scales, ten times more...
I will never forget my family, I will never forget the crimes they
[Isis] have committed against me, but when I listen to these women
and what happened to them I forgot my own story because they are
more brutal."
The Yazidi community one of the oldest religious minorities in
Iraq and predominately ethnic Kurds. Yazidis have been heavily
persecuted by Isis, who consider them to be heretics. Thousands
have been killed by fighters and thousands more taken captive by
the group or sold into sexual slavery.