Nadia Murad: The Activist Behind UN Guidelines On Collecting Evidence In Sexual Violence Cases

On April 13, human rights activist Nadia Murad launched global guidelines on how to safely and effectively collect evidence from survivors and witnesses of sexual violence in conflict zones at the United Nations. Called the Murad Codes, the guidelines were developed under a campaign funded by Nadia’s Initiative and the Institute of International Criminal Investigations.

The Nobel laureate is herself a survivor of war crimes who was enslaved by the Islamic State and also threatened with execution. Speaking about the guidelines and how they can ensure that survivors of sexual violence during conflicts get justice, Murad said, “The Murad Code lays out clear and practical guidelines for centring the needs of survivors when collecting evidence, and ensuring that they receive justice and support, rather than repercussions. Survivors deserve at least that.”

On Thursday, Nadia’s Initiative and IICI are going to conduct a webinar on the Survivor Centred Documentation of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: the Murad Code Project.

Suggested Reading: How Violence Against Women Is Deeply Rooted In Disrespect

Who Is Nadia Murad?

Born in 1993, Nadia Murad hails from Kojo in northern Iraq. She comes from of the Yazidi minority- a community that is a mixture of Islam, Christianity and ancient Iranian religions.

In the year 2014, Murad’s village was captured by the Islamic State (IS). In her book, The Last Girl, which came out in 2017, Murad has described the pre-capture state and what happened after that. The IS carried out a widespread attack on Yazidis as they claimed them to be worshippers of the devil, who needed to be eliminated. She detailed how men and women were divided by the invaders. While men were taken to a separate location and shot at, women and young children were kept hostages in a school.

Murad wrote about how she and her fellow women were abducted and held as sex slaves. The human rights activist also revealed that she was threatened with execution if she did not convert to Islam and raped. After some months of living through it, Murad managed to escape and arrived in Germany in 2015.

It is then that she chose to tell the international community what she had suffered and hoped that her statements result in her abusers being punished for the crimes they had committed.

In 2016, she was appointed as the Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations and then in 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.