Nadia Murad doesn't want empathy alone — she wants concrete action. She received the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight on behalf of her people, the Yazidis, and of victims of violence, against Isis, which enslaved her: but this is only the beginning.
Deciding to tell the truth was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made, but it was also the most important.Nadia Murad, The Last Girl
A very young woman of superhuman courage. The courage to survive the slavery and sexual violence inflicted on her by militants of the Islamic State (Isis, also known as Daesh). The courage to escape from her captors and come to Europe. The courage to tell the world her story and that of her people, the Yazidis, in the name of justice.
It is for this courage that Nadia Murad Basee became the first Iraqi person to receive, at the age of 25, the most prestigious humanitarian recognition of all, the Nobel Peace Prize, last October. Together with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, she was chosen for her "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and in armed conflicts." To coincide with the award ceremony for Murad on 10 December, the documentary On Her Shoulders by Alexandria Bombach — which follows the Yazidi activist's campaign and had its Italian premiere as part of the Sala Biografilm programme — was screened in Italian cinemas, distributed from 6 to 12 December by I Wonder Pictures and Unipol Biografilm Collection.
Read also: Sulle sue spalle, il documentario che racconta la forza e il tormento di Nadia Murad, al cinema
"Rape has always been used as a weapon of war," Murad states in her autobiography, The Last Girl. "I never would have thought I had anything in common with the women of Rwanda — before everything that happened to me, I didn't even know there was a country called Rwanda — now I am bound to them in the worst possible way." The terrible ordeal that links Murad, the 3,000 Yazidi women sold into slavery by Isis, and all the others around the world on whose bodies the most appalling war crimes have been committed, began in 2014.
Before, Murad had dreamed of becoming a teacher or opening a beauty salon. But on 3 August her small rural village of Kocho, along with many others in Sinjar, in northern Iraq near the border with Syria, was overrun by the advancing Islamic State caliphate. This is one of the areas with the highest concentration of Yazidi population — a religious minority whose faith combines elements of Christianity and Islam, and to which an estimated half a million people worldwide are believed to belong. Throughout their long history — it is one of the oldest monotheistic religions — the Yazidis have faced attacks and discrimination at the hands of other groups, who have also labelled them "devil worshippers."
Thousands of Yazidis were killed within a matter of days, if not hours, and Isis launched a ferocious campaign to wipe out their culture: a true genocide, according to the United Nations. Now, even though the caliphate has been defeated by Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters with the support of international military coalitions, it is estimated that 3,000 women, men and children are still in the hands of militants, while thousands of Yazidis have still not been able to return home (also for fear of a possible return of Daesh), and are living in refugee camps.
[caption id="attachment_144335" align="alignnone" width="1024"]
Nadia Murad gives her testimony during a hearing of a United States Senate committee on the ideology of Isis © Mark Wilson/Getty Images[/caption]
Nadia Murad's story
[quote cite="L’ultima ragazza" url="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/06/nadia-murad-isis-sex-slave-nobel-peace-prize"]The slave market opened at night … the militants put their hands all over us, touching our breasts and legs as if we were animals.Nadia
At 21, Murad was abducted by Isis, forced to convert to Islam and sold multiple times as a sex slave. Not only did she lose her mother and six brothers, but also the possibility of living a normal life: "my life in Sinjar as a simple Yazidi farm girl is gone forever, the dreams and hopes of my entire community have been destroyed."
In November 2014 she managed to escape (taking advantage of a door left open by one of her captors), crossed Iraqi Kurdistan to reach a refugee camp and then Germany, where she currently lives. From there, she began to carve out a new path. Carrying within her a trauma that could have destroyed anyone, she decided to show her wounds to the world. With one very clear intention: to become a spokesperson for her people and for victims of trafficking and violence.
My story is the best weapon I have against terrorism, and I intend to use it until the terrorists are brought to trial.L'ultima ragazza
She began telling her story, for instance during a United Nations Security Council session in 2015, little more than a year after Isis had tried to erase her identity forever. She became the first UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, a role she accepted in 2016 during a ceremony held at United Nations headquarters in New York, with her lawyer and supporter Amal Clooney by her side.
Every time she recounts the injustices she has suffered, she relives the horror. "I cried when I heard her story," said Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General. "My tears were not only tears of sadness — I was also moved by Nadia's strength, courage and dignity."
Murad is fighting to "establish a safe zone for religious minorities in Iraq, and to put Isis on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity." In September 2017 an important milestone was reached: the adoption of a UN resolution to investigate crimes committed by the Islamic State in Iraq. Murad founded an organisation, Nadia's initiative, in support of the rights of victims of violence and the Yazidi people, directing the prize money awarded to her by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to the Sinjar action fund created by her organisation, also with the support of French president Emmanuel Macron.
The terrorists had not thought that we Yazidi girls would manage to escape, or that we would have the courage to tell the world what they did to us. Our way of defying them is to not let their crimes go unpunished.L'ultima ragazza
Murad carries with her the weight of her terrible memories and that of a profound sense o
