Nobel Peace Prize recipient and human rights activist Nadia Murad to give Hanway Lecture
Nadia Murad, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and human rights activist, will deliver 91吃瓜网's Hanway Lecture in Global Studies on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, at 7 p.m. in McGuire Hall. The event will also be livestreamed.
Murad is the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State. Her memoir details a harrowing account of the 2014 Yazidi genocide and her kidnap and imprisonment by the Islamic State (IS). During her lecture at Loyola, Murad will share her painful story of captivity, her courageous escape, and her new life as an activist for the rights of women and girls. Murad speaks all over the world to create greater awareness of sexual violence, human trafficking and the needs of its victims, and to defend the rights of all marginalized ethnic and religious minorities. A moderated discussion will follow her presentation.
鈥淣adia Murad is raising questions about a critically important issue鈥攈uman rights for women and girls," said Mary Kate Schneider, Ph.D., director of Global Studies and lecturer of Political Science. 鈥淒espite the tremendous progress that has been made to ensure that universal human rights apply universally to all humans, Nadia鈥檚 story shows us that so much work remains to be done. But perhaps even more than that, she also stands as a beacon of hope that perseverance can triumph over adversity.鈥�
Murad, who was raised in a farming village in Sinjar, Iraq, survived a 2014 Islamic State attack on her village. Murad was taken to Mosul and sold, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into ISIS slavery. After three months in captivity, she escaped to Germany as a refugee and addressed the United Nation Security Council on human trafficking and slavery. Murad works with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Yazda, a Yazidi rights organization, to bring ISIS before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The Council of Europe鈥檚 Vaclav Havel Award for Human Rights and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought recipient was also named the United Nation鈥檚 first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. Murad is the recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association of Spain, and named the .
Her 2017 memoir, The Last Girl, has been translated into more than 40 languages and serves as an example for other survivors, including those still in captivity. In 2018, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach released the documentary On Her Shoulders, chronicling Murad鈥檚 activism.
Murad is the founder and president of , a non-profit that is dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their communities.
Registration for the event will open on Wednesday, Oct. 27. For more information visit, www.loyola.edu/hanwaylecture.