Two Yazidi women who survived a nightmare ordeal of kidnapping, rape and slavery at the hands of Daesh terrorists won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on Thursday.
Nadia Murad and Lamia Haji Bashar have become figureheads for the effort to protect the Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion with more than half a million believers concentrated in northern Iraq.
“They have a painful and tragic story” but “they felt compelled to survive to bear witness,” European Parliament chief Martin Schulz told the assembly in Strasbourg.
“The courage of these two women, the dignity they represent defies all description.”
Murad hailed the prize as a “profound message to the Daesh terrorist group that their criminal inhumanity is condemned and their victims are honored by the free world.”
In a statement she said the award told “our people and particularly to the more than 6,700 women, girls, and children who became victims of slavery and human trafficking under Daesh, that the genocide will not be repeated.”
According to UN experts, around 3,200 Yazidis are currently being held by IS, the majority of them in war-ravaged Syria.
Bestowed annually, the award is named after the dissident Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1989, and honors individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression, often falling foul of their governments as a result.
The prize, worth 50,000 euros ($55,000), will be presented at a ceremony on December 14 in Strasbourg.
Murad, a slight, softly spoken young woman, was taken by Daesh from her home village of Kocho near Iraq’s northern town of Sinjar in August 2014 and brought to the city of Mosul.
As a captive of the reviled extremist group, Murad, now 23, said she was tortured and raped.
Bashar, who was just 16 when she was taken and is also from Kocho, witnessed family and friends being slaughtered by Daesh men before being enslaved and sold.
After 20 months in captivity she escaped but then fell into the hands of an Iraqi hospital director who also abused and raped her and several other victims.
In a final tragedy, Bashar suffered horrific burns to her face and lost her right eye when one of her friends stepped on a land mine following their flight from the hospital director.

Source: Arab News