Erbil – The Iraqi Yazidi young woman who escaped ISIS, Nadia Murad, didn’t know that she and her entire village were going to be sex slaves for ISIS terrorists after it took over Mosul in June 2014.
Murad, 23-year-old, lived with her family in the village of Kocho near Iraq’s northern town of Sinjar. In August 2014, ISIS entered the village and no one was able to escape. On the 15th of August, the terrorist organization separated men from the women. ISIS terrorists later shot men and boys in cold blood including six of Nadia’s brother and her mother, while three of her brothers managed to escape.
In a statement, Nadia said: “ISIS didn’t come to kill women and girls, but to use us as spoils of war, as objects to be sold with little or to be gifted for free.”
Nadia was then captured by ISIS, along with other women, subjected to sexual and physical abuse after being sold as a slave several times. She tried to escape but a guard caught her, undressed her, and presented her to others who gang-raped her until she lost conscience.
She was finally able to escape after three months of imprisonment and continuous rape. She went to a house in Mosul, where the family helped her to go to Kirkuk and then to Kurdistan region where she was reunited with her brother in one of the refugees’ camps.
Nadia went to Germany, where she is residing now, for treatment and began her journey of introducing the world to the cruelty of ISIS. She toured around the world meeting several officials including Britain, Holland, Sweden, France, Egypt – where she met with President Sisi, and Kuwait where she met with Sheikh Sabah Ahmad al-Sabah.
In June 2016, Nadia was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and was declared by the U.N. as an ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking for the U.N.’s Drugs and Crime body. Times Magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people for 2016.
Commenting on her appointment as U.N. ambassador, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said: “Nadia survived horrific crimes.”
Sec Gen added that: “I cried when I heard her story. But I didn’t only cry out of sadness. I was also moved to tears because Nadia has so much strength, courage and dignity.”
“She rightly calls for a world where all children live in peace,” he concluded
Murad called for the release of some 3,200 Yazidi women and girls still being held as sex slaves by ISIS terrorists and for the captors to face justice.
“My real fear is that once ISIS is defeated, ISIS militants and terrorists will just shave off their beards and walk the streets of the cities as if nothing had happened,” she said.
Nadia said her hope was that one day, Yazidi victims will be able to look “our abusers in the eye before a court in The Hague and tell the world what they have done to us, so that our community can heal.”
As a goodwill ambassador, Murad will focus on raising awareness of the plight of victims of trafficking persons, especially refugees, women and girls.
She is represented by international lawyer Amal Clooney, who said ISIS group must be held accountable for grave crimes.