Congolese Dr Mukwege, Yazidi campaigner Murad win Nobel Peace Prize 2018 for fight against sexual violence

Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad have been awarded with the coveted 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for their campaign against rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflicts across the world.

Ms Murad is a Yazidi woman, hailing from the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar and was held as a sex slave by ISIS back in 2016. Later on, she became the face of a campaign to free the Yazidi people and was made a UN goodwill ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking.

Mr Mukwege, on the other hand, is a Congolese gynaecologist by profession and has treated ten thousand of rape victims, giving them new inspiration to live by.

The pair won the award for their "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war," Nobel committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said while unveiling the winners' name in the Norwegian capital Oslo.

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The pair made a "crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," Reiss-Andersen added.

BREAKING NEWS:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. #NobelPrize #NobelPeacePrize pic.twitter.com/LaICSbQXWM

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018

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Both have come to represent the struggle against a global scourge which goes well beyond any single conflict, as the ever-expanding #MeToo movement has shown.

Apart from Murad and Mukwege, some 329 individuals and organisations were nominated for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize this year.