Denis Mukwege, Nadia Murad win Nobel Peace Prize for fight against sexual violence

Mukwege spent much of his life helping victims of sexual violence, while Murad spoke out about her repeated rape after being captured by ISIS.</s>The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”.

The winners were named by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Congolese doctor Mr Mukwege has been a critic of the Congolese government and has treated victims of sexual violence.

Ms Murad is a Yazidi who was a captive of Islamic State.</s>The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Mukwege, a gynecologist and surgeon, has long worked to treat thousands of women and girls affected by rape and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Murad is a Yazidi woman from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, who was held as a sex slave by ISIS, she told CNN in an interview last year. In 2016, at age 23, she was made a UN goodwill ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking.

“Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, as she announced the award Friday at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

“Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending these victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others.

“Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to wartime sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.”

Mukwege has earned the moniker “The man who mends women” for the work he and his colleagues at Panzi Hospital have done since he founded the clinic in the eastern DRC city of Bukavu 20 years ago.

“Denis Mukwege is the foremost, most unifying symbol, both nationally and internationally, of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflicts. His basic principle is that ‘justice is everyone’s business,'” said Reiss-Andersen.

Speaking to CNN in 2009, Mukwege described how vital it was for women brutalized in the course of the DRC’s long-running conflict to find support and recognition.

“You just can’t imagine how a smile, a simple handshake, to just tell them ‘be encouraged’ is important to them. To feel they are loved, to feel they can finally find love and affection,” he said.

Murad becomes the 17th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and is its second-youngest recipient after Malala Yousafzai.

Reiss-Andersen said Murad had “shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.”

Speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last year, Murad described how ISIS attacked her community early on August 3, 2014.

“Nearly 6,500 women and children from the Yazidi were abducted and about 5,000 people from the community were killed during that day,” she said. “For eight months, they separated us from our mothers and our sisters and our brothers, and some of them were killed and others disappeared.”

Murad’s mother and six of her brothers and stepbrothers were executed. Murad, along with other unmarried women, was taken as a sex slave and passed around various ISIS militants.

Both winners have “put their personal security at risk by courageously combating war crimes and seeking justice for the victims,” Reiss-Andersen said.

She added that the Nobel committee had been unable to reach Mukwege and Murad to let them know about their award before it was announced to the world.

“We have tried to contact the winners and we haven’t managed to get through on the phone. If they are watching this, my heartfelt congratulations,” she said.

European Council President Donald Tusk also congratulated both winners. “They have my deepest respect for the courage, compassion and humanity they demonstrate in their daily fight,” he tweeted.

There were 331 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 — the second-highest number ever. Of those, 216 were individuals and 115 were organizations, according to Nobel organizers. The names of the nominees cannot be revealed until 50 years have passed.

The recipient is chosen by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian Parliament.

Last year’s prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize went to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end,” after brokering a deal with the leftist rebel group FARC.

The Peace Prize is the fourth Nobel award to be announced this week. The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded half to Frances H. Arnold and the other half jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter on Wednesday for their work harnessing the power of evolution to develop new proteins used in drugs and medical treatments. Arnold was the fifth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

On Tuesday, the Nobel Prize in Physics was given to a woman for the first time in 55 years and for only the third time in its history.

Donna Strickland, a Canadian physicist, was awarded the 2018 prize jointly with Gérard Mourou, from France, for their work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses. They share the award with an American, Arthur Ashkin, who at 96 becomes the oldest Nobel laureate, for developing “optical tweezers.”

A day earlier, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine for a pioneering approach to cancer treatment, which harnesses the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells.</s>The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict." (Oct. 5) AP</s>Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege have been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in trying to end sexual violence during war and armed conflict. There are many tragedies in war and among the worst are victims of sexual violence. Women’s bodies have become battle sites and sexual violence a weapon of war.

Murad is one such victim, developing a global witness as a UN Goodwill Ambassador to the abuse she suffered as a Yazidi at the hands of Islamic State. She has campaigned for the protection of survivors of human trafficking.

Denis Mukwege is a medic based in the Democratic Republic of Congo and he and his staff have helped thousands of victims abused in its prolonged and bloody wars – and many more forcibly removed people besides. Mukwege also speaks, at much risk to himself, against Congolese governments and others who shield military rapists.

It is a comment frequently made that the Nobel Peace Prize is a contradiction, founded for “the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses” by an armaments manufacturer, notable for inventing dynamite.

Handing over the awarding of the Peace Prize to a five-person committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, rather than to Sweden, reflects Norway’s long-established engagement in facilitating peace negotiations. Well before the Peace Prize was inaugurated in 1901, the Norwegian government was assisting the European Inter-Parliamentary Union’s work on mediation, an involvement in conflict resolution that continues to this day.



 Read more:

 The curious history of the Nobel Peace Prize

 



Peace is itself often politically controversial, especially when powerful nation states and multi-state alliances have conducted the war – and the award of the Peace Prize is invariably disputed. The Peace Prize is notable for the illustrious people omitted from its list of laureates as for those recognised by its award.

Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel and Eleanor Roosevelt are among a number who have failed to muster the prize – Gandhi was nominated five times to no avail. But politicians abound among its laureates – including those with dubious reputations, even at the time, such as Henry Kissinger.

Barack Obama, who was awarded in his first year as US president, seemed to get one simply for being elected as the first black president (he was still puzzled himself at the award even at the end of his second term). Relatively unsuccessful politicians can be given the award – for example one-term US president Jimmy Carter and unsuccessful presidential candidate Al Gore. People from Northern Ireland, with only 1.8m people, have won it twice. The US and the UK dominate the countries of recipients. It has also been won by 16 women – more than any other Nobel category.

It has been awarded to organisations on several occasions: the European Union won it for not being at war with itself since 1945, the International Committee of the Red Cross has won it three times, and the Office of the UN High Commission for Refugees twice. Only one nominee declined the prize, the Vietcong’s chief negotiator Le Duc Tho, who described it as bourgeois sentimentality. Two members of the awarding committee resigned in protest when it was determined to make the 1973 award to Le Duc Tho and Kissinger, while the results of the peace negotiations were still uncertain. Kissinger gave his prize money to charity and did not attend the ceremony.

Political controversies aside, the award committee has often got it right and the recipient is met with general acclaim. The 2018 recipients are such a case. As the prize committee said:

Courage – in speaking out against sexual violence and in speaking for its countless victims – is the word that catches my eye in the committee’s comments. I think this word apt, for it applies as much to the victims themselves who have to live daily – if they survive at all – with the consequences of sexual violence.

I like to think the award is as much in honour of those victims as the two deserving recipients.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</s>Nobel Peace Prize goes to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for fighting sexual violence

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a Congolese doctor and an Iraqi woman for their efforts to end sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad “have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes,” the Nobel Committee said in announcing the prize.

Dr Mukwege, 63, has devoted his life to defending victims of war-time sexual violence while Ms Murad, 25, who is Yazidi, has campaigned through telling of the sexual abuse she and others suffered at the hands of Islamic State.

The gynaecologist and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have been assaulted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and he is considered the world’s leading expert on repairing injuries from rape.

@NobelPrize

 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending victims of war-time sexual violence. Fellow laureate Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. #NobelPrize

At just 23-years-old Ms Murad became the UN’s first goodwill ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking after speaking openly about what she suffered before she escaped Islamic State.

The committee said: “She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.

“Nadia Murad is one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army.

“The abuses were systematic and part of a military strategy. They served as a weapon in the fight against Yazidis and other religious minorities.”

Dr Mukwege has repeatedly condemned impunity for mass rape in the country, and criticised the Congolese government and other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of sexual violence against women as a weapon of war, the Nobel committee said.

“Denis Mukwege’s basic principle is that ‘justice is everyone’s business,'” it said.

“The 2018 Peace Laureate is the foremost, most unifying symbol, both nationally and internationally, of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflicts.”

The nine million Swedish kronor (£777,000) prize will be shared between the two laureates.

The Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, Norway, received 216 nominations for individuals and 115 organisations.

Only a few dozen of the nominees were known before the announcement, as the committee keeps the list of nominations secret for 50 years.

Some candidates are revealed by those who have nominated them.

Last year’s winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

The committee has come under criticism for some of the prizes it has awarded, including to former US president Barack Obama, who won in 2009 before achieving anything in office.

The Nobel committee has said it will not strip Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi of her 1991 prize, despite calls for her to lose it for her lack of response to the Rohingya crisis.

On Tuesday the Nobel Prize in Physics was won by a woman for the first time in 55 years, after Marie Curie won it in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.

Canadian scientist Donna Strickland shares the prize with Arthur Ashkin from the US and Gerard Mourou from France for their discoveries in the field of laser physics.

She helped Dr Ashkin develop a laser technique described as “optical tweezers” which can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them. SkyNews</s>The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their contributions to combating wartime sexual assault.

The prize was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway, on Friday morning. The committee praised the winners for being symbols in the fight to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, has treated victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo for most of his adult life. He founded the Panzi Hospital, which supports survivors of sexual assault.

"His basic principal is that justice is everyone's business," the committee said.

Murad herself is a victim of sexual war crimes.

The 25-year-old is a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq and was taken captive by ISIS members who had launched an attack on her small village. She was held as a sex slave and subject to other abuses for three months before escaping. In 2016, at the age of 23, she was named the U.N.'s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

"She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected," the committee said.

There were 331 candidates for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, the second-highest number of candidates ever. The Peace Prize is the only Nobel Prize awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Last year's prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, a global organization seeking to "outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons" under international law.

The committee praised ICAN for drawing attention to "the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons." The world's nuclear powers have not committed to their treaty.

This year's Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences earlier this week. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be awarded on Monday.</s>(ABC NEWS)- Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad each have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for their work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in armed conflict.

There were no clear favorites in the run-up to the award, but the Norwegian Nobel Committee declared that “each of them in their own way have helped to give greater visibility to wartime sexual violence so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.”

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in had been the favorites for the award for their work on denuclearization.

The bookies Sky Bet had priced the pair at 4/7, while U.S. President Donald Trump had been touted as the second favorite at 4/1.

There were 331 candidates for the prize this year, of which 216 were people and 115 were organizations. Nobel policy is to not release the list of nominees until 50 years have lapsed.

In the event that the committee didn’t reached a consensus, it turns to a simple majority vote, according to its website.

In recent decades the academy has often come under scrutiny for a number of controversial awards.

Henrik Urdal, the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told ABC News that Nobel Prize winners former U.S. President Barack Obama and Myanmar Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi were two such laureates.

“I think Barack Obama is a case where they jumped too early,” he said. “When it comes to Aung San Suu Kyi, she was awarded for something I think is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. But she hasn’t lived up to the expectations afterward.”

Obama was given the prize after less than a year in office, and Aung San Suu Kyi has been accused of severe human rights violations since becoming prime minister.

The selection process is often fraught with dilemmas, and this year would have been no different.

The committee voters “are trying to vet the candidates for background,” Urdal said. “But there is no guarantee whatsoever that they don’t do something ridiculous and something that’s in opposition to the idea of the prize at a later point in life.”

Daniel Hogsta, the campaign coordinator for last year’s winners, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told ABC News that the biggest change that comes from winning the award is the increased media attention.

The award “hasn’t fundamentally changed the priorities of the work, but it elevated everything to a different level,” he said. “It’s been difficult in some aspects –- we’re flooded with requests for comment, appearances and interviews.

“The attention that it brings every year is not getting any less,” he added. “They are able to award the prize for very different kinds of achievements. If all the winners were agreeable to everyone I don’t think the prize would be equally important.”</s>2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 2016: Juan Manuel Santos 2015: The National Dialogue Quartet 2014: Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai 2013: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 2012: The European Union 2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman 2010: Liu Xiaobo 2009: Barack Obama

Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist treating victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad have been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

The pair received the award for their "effort to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict", Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Nobel Committee, announced at a press conference in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on Friday.

"Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on and combatting such war crimes," said Reiss-Andersen.

"Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending his victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others.

"Each of them, in their own way, has helped to give greater visibility to wartime sexual violence so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions," she said.

Mukwege has spent decades helping victims of sexual violence in the DRC, where a long-running civil war has claimed around six million lives.

At the Panzi hospital, which he founded in the eastern city of Bukavu in 1999, Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of women who have been the victims of sexual violence.

Endemic in warzones, sexual violence is a commonplace in the DRC, which was once dubbed the "rape capital of the world". A 2011 report from the American Journal of Public Health claimed that around 48 women were raped every hour in the country.

In Friday's announcement, Reiss-Andersen call Mukwege "the foremost, most unifying symbol both nationally and internationally of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflicts" and praised the surgeon's principal of making justice "everyone's business".

"The importance of Denis Mukwege's enduring dedicated and selfless efforts in this field cannot be overrated. He has repeatedly condemned impunity for mass rape and criticised the Congolese government and other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of sexual violence against women as a strategy and a weapon of war," she said.

Murad has become a prominent activist for Yazidi women who were targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIL) as the armed group established control of Iraqi territory.

In August 2014, she was captured by ISIS fighters and sold as a sex slave. During her three-month captivity, Murad was subjected to rape and got death threats if she did not convert to Islam.

The Yazidis are a minority religious community of about 400,000 people living in northern Iraq. Their beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions.

ISIS does not consider the Yazidis' faith legitimate and massacred hundreds and enslaved an estimated 3,000 girls and women.

During the announcement, Reiss-Andersen applauded Murad's "uncommon courage" in speaking out about her experience, as well as on behalf of other victims.

"She refused to accept the social codes that required women to remain silent and ashamed about the abuses to which they had been subjected," she said.

Although the Nobel committee does not release the names of those it considers for the prize, it revealed that it had sorted through more than 331 candidates for this year's award, which recognises both accomplishments and intentions.

Recent laureates include The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons for its work creating the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who worked to secure a peace deal with the FARC rebel group.

The prize announcement in the Norwegian capital was the culmination of a week in which Nobel laureates have been named in medicine, physics, chemistry. The literature prize will not be awarded this year due to a scandal involving the awarding Swedish academy.</s>Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad were awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.

The committee received nominations for 216 individuals and 115 organizations for the 9 million Swedish kronor ($1.01 million) award.

Last year’s winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Past winners who came under criticism include former U.S. President Barack Obama, who won in 2009 after less than a year in office.

Among those put forward this year were the Syrian civilian aid group White Helmets, Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Edward Snowden and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

More: Does Donald Trump deserve to win a Nobel Peace Prize?
Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."