Yazidi women receive European human rights prize

Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar come from the Yazidi community in Iraq, an ethnically Kurdish religious minority persecuted by Islamic State (IS) militants.

They were victims of the Sinjar massacre of August 2014, during which IS militants murdered thousands of Yazidi men from the Iraqi district of Sinjar.

Murad and Aji Bashar were among women and girls abducted and exploited as sex slaves, but were eventually smuggled out of Iraq.

Since their escape they have been raising awareness about the plight of the Yazidi community.

The European Parliament awarded them the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Andrei Sakharov who was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, human rights advocate and Soviet dissident.

The human rights prize draws attention to rights violations and supports laureates and their causes. (vb/pk)

Source: europarl.europa.eu