Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad received the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon in war and armed conflicts”.
Denis Mukwege is a doctor who has dedicated his life to helping victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, torn apart by civil war.
Nadia Murad, a rape survivor, had the courage to tell her story and bear witness on behalf of others who have suffered the same trauma. It is for this that they were awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.
Mukwege believes that "justice is everyone's business". He has repeatedly denounced episodes of violence in his country, and criticised the Congolese government for failing to put an end to them. Nadia Murad belongs to the Yazidi ethnic minority, fiercely persecuted by the Islamic State in Iraq. Like her, from 2014 onwards around three thousand women have suffered sexual violence and every form of abuse at the hands of militants. After fleeing, she had the courage to testify and in 2016 became the first United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian parliament. Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy received it for the first time in 1901, for founding the Red Cross and creating the first French pacifist organisation respectively. In 2009 the prize was awarded to the then President of the United States Barack Obama. Last year it was conferred on the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
