Nobel Prize

Nadia Murad is a German based Iraqi human right activist who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize awards at the age of 25. She is also the first Iraqi woman to win that award.

She was awarded alongside a Congolese doctor, Denis Mukwege for their efforts in ending the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Murad and about 3,000 other Yazidi women were kidnapped and sold into sex slavery by ISIS in 2014, as part of the terrorist group’s genocidal campaign to wipe out the religious minority.

Here are 9 things you should know about Nadia Murad:

1.Her full name is Nadia Murad Basee Taha

2.Murad was born in the village of Kojo in Sinjar District, Iraq.

3.Nadia Murad was taken into slavery by ISIS on 15 September, 2014.

4.She escaped from ISIS camp in November, 2014.

5.Murad started living in Germany in 2015 after leaving the refugee camp.

6.Murad worked with United Nations in global and local advocacy initiatives to bring awareness of human trafficking and refugees in December, 2015.

7.In September, 2016, she announced her Initiative called “Murad’s Initiave”to provide advocacy and assistance to victims of genocide.

8.In 2016, she received her first award which was the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations.

9.Nadia Murad became the first Iraqi woman to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize

Credit: Fabwoman.ng

The Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to a woman for the first time in 55 years, just a day after a scientist at Cern was suspended for claiming the discipline was ‘built by men.’

Prof Donna Strickland was one of three who will share the prize, the first female to achieve the accolade since Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 and only the third woman in history. The first being Marie Curie.

“We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there, and hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate,” she said on a phone call to the press conference.

“I’m honoured to be one of those women.”

The announcement that a woman had been awarded the prize for physics comes just a day after Italian scientist Professor Alessandro Strumia was suspended by Cern for saying that “physics was invented and built by men” in a talk.

Commenting on the announcement, Jim Al-Khalili, the president of the British Science Association, said: “It is quite shocking to know that she is only the third woman to win a Physics Nobel, ever.

“It is also quite delicious that this comes just a few days after certain controversial and misogynistic comments made at a conference at CERN about women in physics.”

Prof Strickland was honored alongside Dr Gerard Mourou of France, for their work in creating the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created by mankind, which are now used in laser eye surgery to restore vision for millions of people.

The prize was also awarded to Arthur Ashkin, 96, for his invention of “optical tweezers” that grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their laser beam fingers.

Credit: telegraph.co.uk

Photo credit: CTV News

PROFILE| MEET NADIA MURAD, THE FIRST IRAQI WOMAN TO WIN A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AWARD