Denis Mukwege, Nadia Murad awarded 2018 Nobel Peace prize

The 2018 Nobel Peace prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. The award was announced by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the Nobel committee chair, who said the pair were "crucial" in fighting the crimes. "A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognised and protected in war," she said.

Murad is a Yazidi woman who was tortured and raped by Islamic State militants, while Mukwege is a Congolese gynaecologist who has treated victims.

The Nobel committee observed that Denis Mukwege was the helper who devoted his life to defending victims of war-time sexual violence and that his fellow laureate Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others.

The physician Denis Mukwege, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults, the committee tweeted. Mukwege has repeatedly condemned impunity for mass rape and criticised the Congolese government and other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of sexual violence against women as a strategy and weapon of war.

Mukwege, 63, was recognised for two decades of work to help women recover from the violence and trauma of sexual abuse and rape in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Women, children and even babies just a few months old, Mukwege has treated tens of thousands of victims of rape at Panzi hospital which he founded in 1999 in South Kivu. Known as "Doctor Miracle", he is an outspoken critic of the abuse of women during war who has described rape as "a weapon of mass destruction." 

Nadia Murad, the committee said, is one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army. The abuses were systematic and part of a military strategy. They served as a weapon in the fight against Yazidis and other religious minorities. Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.

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 Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014. Murad was 21-years-old in 2014 when Islamic State militants attacked the village where she had grown up in northern Iraq. The militants killed those who refused to convert to Islam, including six of her brothers and her mother. 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 Islamic State’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.

The Nobel Peace Prize winners are selected by a committee of five persons chosen by the Norwegian Parliament. This is done to follow the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel who established the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has been selecting the winner for the Peace prize since 1901. While the other awardees are selected by the Swedish committees, only the Peace prize is awarded by the Norwegian committee. 

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.”

This year 331 individuals and organisations were nominated for the prestigious peace award. The prize will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.