Yazidi activist formerly enslaved by IS among possible contenders for 2016 Nobel Peace Prize

Record ID: 83201

  • Title: Yazidi activist formerly enslaved by IS among possible contenders for 2016 Nobel Peace Prize
  • Date: 1st October 2016
  • Summary: IDOMENI, GREECE (FILE - APRIL 3, 2016) (REUTERS) YAZIDI MIGRANT EMBRACING YAZIDI FORMER ISLAMIC STATE CAPTIVE, NADIA MURAD BASEE TAHA, DURING HER VISIT TO THE CAMP GREEK POLICE AND ONLOOKERS WATCH AS MURAD HOLDS AND KISSES HANDS OF YAZIDI MIGRANT CROWDS OF MIGRANTS CROWDED AROUND TENT WHERE MURAD IS VARIOUS OF MURAD SPEAKING TO MIGRANTS INSIDE TENT MURAD LEAVING TENT CROWDS GATHERING AROUND MURAD/POLICEMAN IN FRONT OF MURAD (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) YAZIDI FORMER ISLAMIC STATE CAPTIVE, NADIA MURAD BASEE TAHA, SAYING: ''I am here because of the crisis of the refugees. We have to find a solution for them. Greece is not the one blocking the borders.'' CROWDS OF MIGRANTS HOLDING MOBILE PHONES
  • Embargoed: 16th October 2016 08:56
  • Keywords: Islamic State Nobel Peace prize Yazidi Nadia Murad Syria; Iraq refugees migrants Greece Norway
  • Location: UNITED NATIONS / IDOMENI, GREECE/ ATHENS, GREECE/ SINJAR MOUNTAIN, IRAQ/ UNKNOWN LOCATION/ SAID TO BE KIRKUK PROVINCE, IRAQ
  • City: UNITED NATIONS / IDOMENI, GREECE/ ATHENS, GREECE/ SINJAR MOUNTAIN, IRAQ/ UNKNOWN LOCATION/ SAID TO BE KIRKUK PROVINCE, IRAQ
  • Country: Various
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA002526VBYF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A Yazidi activist formerly held captive by Islamic State is a possible contender for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016.
    Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a 23-year-old Iraqi woman of the Yazidi faith escaped Islamic State sex slavery after three months of captivity and has been advocating for the end of human trafficking ever since.
    After escaping in 2014, Taha described her experience of torture and rape at the United Nations and pleaded to the 15-member council to wipe out the militant group.
    Taha recounted how she was abducted in August 2014 from her village of Kocho in Sinjar, northern Iraq, and taken by bus to a building in the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, where thousands of Yazidi women and children were given to men as gifts.
    After a few days in Mosul, she was taken by a man who subjected her to abuse and gang rape.
    "He forced me to get dressed and put my makeup on and then that terrible night, he did it. He forced me to serve as part of his military faction, he humiliated me every day," she told the U.N.
    She tried to flee, but was stopped by a guard.
    "That night he beat me. He asked me to take my clothes off. He put me in a room with the guards and then they proceeded to commit their crime until I fainted," she said. "I implore you, get rid of Daesh (Islamic State) completely."
    Taha, who said several of her brothers were killed by Islamic State militants, eventually escaped and is now living in Germany. Visibly emotional after telling her story, the members of the U.N. Security Council applauded her courage.
    Islamic State militants consider the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers. The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam. Most of the Yazidi population, numbering around half a million, remains displaced in camps inside the autonomous entity in Iraq's north known as Kurdistan.
    According to the United Nations, the Sunni militants enslaved about 7,000 women and girls in 2014 and is still holding 3,500, some as sex slaves.
    In December 2015, Taha went on to meet with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in Athens before heading to Greece's Idomeni camp where thousands of migrants had gathered at the border area with Macedonia in an attempt to escape the conflicts in their countries.
    She urged the crowds to move to formal camps set up by the Greek government in order to process their asylum applications.
    ''I am here because of the crisis of the refugees. We have to find a solution for them. Greece is not the one blocking the borders,'' Taha told reporters.
    In September 2016 Taha was appointed the UNODC Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.
    The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday October 7, at 1100 a.m. (0900GMT).
    The prize, worth 10 million Swedish crowns (1.1 million U.S. dollars), will be handed over on December 10, 2016.
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