EU Parliament awards Sakharov Prize to Yazidi women

The European Parliament on Oct. 27 awarded its Sakharov Prize to Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, two Iraqi Yazidi women who were held as sex slaves by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants and have campaigned for human rights since escaping. 

Murad and Bashar were among thousands of women and girls abducted, tortured and sexually abused by ISIL fighters after the militants rounded up Yazidis in the village of Kocho, near Sinjar in northwest Iraq, in 2014. 
"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, now aged 23, was held by ISIL in Mosul but escaped her captors in November 2014, reached a refugee camp and eventually made her way to Germany. 

She has since become active as an advocate for the Yazidis, and refugee and women's rights in general, as well as campaigning against human trafficking. 

She has briefed the U.N. Security Council on the problem of human trafficking and last month launched Nadia's Initiative to help victims of genocide. She has called for the massacre of Yazidis to be recognized as genocide. 

Bashar, 18, was captured in the same raid as Murad and also kept as a sex slave by ISIL. She escaped in March but was badly disfigured and blinded in one eye when a landmine went off as she fled. Two companions were killed. 

She now lives in Germany, where she has undergone rehabilitation for her wounds, and works as an advocate for the Yazidis. 

The Yazidi are a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions....