Summary
- The Congolese gynaecologist, Denis Mukwege, who has treated thousands of rape victims, and Nadia Murad, the Iraqi Yazidi, who was sold into sex slavery by Isis, have been jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel peace prize. The committee said: “They have both put their own personal security at risk by courageously combatting war crimes and securing justice for victims.”
- The committee said they had both “helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence”. The joint award comes a decade since the UN security council adopted Resolution 1820 (2008), which determined that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict constitutes both a war crime and a threat to international peace and security.
- Congratulations have flooded in, including from past winners Malala Yousafzai, and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the respective heads of Nato and the European Council, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, herself tipped as a potential laureate. The Iraqi government praised Murad, while a spokesman for the Congolese government saluted Mukwege while acknowledging their disagreements and accusing him of a tendency to “politicise” his humanitarian work.
This blog is closing now but I’m going to leave you with a profile of Murad written by my colleague Emma Graham-Harrison, who says it is an award “that celebrates her own extraordinary courage and vital work for women everywhere”.
Updated
The sentiments expressed below by Jan Egeland, who leads the Norwegian Refugee Council, seem to be widely shared:
The best Nobel Prize in a long time. Finally focus on horrific & widespread sexual violence in war. Must lead to action against impunity for perpetrators & preventive action within armies & militias. It is ten years since I fist proposed heroic Mukwege for Nobel Prize. https://t.co/fOpphHFdYs
— Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) October 5, 2018
The head of Human Rights Watch, is also pleased with the choice:
Well deserved and long awaited Nobel recognition of the fight against sexual violence in war. https://t.co/j37cMnXFWR
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) October 5, 2018
The German chancellor Angela Merkel, herself tipped as a potential laureate, has welcomed the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Mukwege and Murad.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said that the German chancellor has “great respect for their work.”
Seibert said Murad came to Germany in 2015 as part of a special program for female victims of violence and met Merkel in 2016 to discuss her work helping others.
The Dutch-based Dr Denis Mukwege Foundation, an international human rights organisation working to end sexual violence in wars, which counts the gynaecologist as an advisor, has welcomed the prize bestowed upon him.
It said:
His work has had an impact on the lives of tens of thousands of survivors and has inspired people around the world.
In selecting Dr Mukwege, the Nobel prize committee is sending a clear message that sexual violence in wars is unacceptable and must stop.
We will continue to work with Dr Mukwege and his team, as well as Nadia Murad, towards a world in which sexual violence as a method of warfare is abolished and survivors receive the care they need.
Congo’s government has congratulated surgeon Denis Mukwege on his Nobel peace prize, while acknowledging that relations have been strained over the years.
Spokesman Lambert Mende told the Associated Press that Mukwege has done “remarkable work” treating victims of sexual violence during years of conflict in the country’s east.
Mukwege in the past has criticised the Congolese government and accused its troops of having a culture of sexual violence.
Mende said “we have not always been in agreement” and that Mukwege has had a tendency to “politicise” his humanitarian work. However, he added: “We salute that a compatriot is recognised.”
Eve Ensler, the writer of The Vagina Monologues, founded the City of Joy for rape survivors in Congo. In 2012, she wrote about Mukwege for the Guardian.
He is the main street of hope for thousands in eastern Congo. He has stayed in a warzone for 14 years and practised medicine with bare medical resources and witnessed the unbearable enacted on the vaginas and bodies of women day after day. He has invented surgeries to meet the acts of cruelty and has helped repair 30,000 rape victims. He has opened and maintained a hospital providing ongoing care in a place with no roads, no water, no electricity, minimal internet or phone and rampant insecurity.
The government of Iraq has congratulated Murad.
The @IraqiGovt renews its commitment to supporting victims of sexual violence perpetrated by Daesh in Iraq and to delivering meaningful justice to survivors
— Government of Iraq (@IraqiGovt) October 5, 2018
After a decade of being shortlisted for the Nobel peace prize, Denis Mukwege, a Congolese doctor who has saved the lives of tens of thousands of women and girls in war-torn eastern DRC, has finally been awarded it.
Nowhere in the world are women’s lives harder than in the DRC, where Mukwege grew up the son of a pastor. When he came back from training as an obstetrician in France, the first patient treated in the maternity clinic he founded was a rape survivor. As dozens more poured through his doors, he realised that rape was being used as a weapon of war. Over two decades later, Panzi Hospital has treated more than 50,000 survivors of sexual violence.
As well as physical treatment, Mukwege created an approach that focused on providing psychological and socioeconomic support to the survivors, as well as founding a legal programme to help them obtain justice.
Beginning in 2013, he and his team had to care for dozens of young girls from the town of Kavumu who were taken from their beds and raped by a militia led by a provincial member of parliament who believed raping children would protect them from their enemies.
For speaking out, Mukwege received death threats and in 2012, he and his family survived an attempted kidnapping. They fled the country but he returned to continue his work three months later.
Congratulations have been sent from the youngest ever Nobel prize laureate.
Congratulations to @NadiaMuradBasee and @DenisMukwege! Their work saves lives and helps women speak out about sexual violence. #NobelPeacePrize https://t.co/2AvNSwleR2
— Malala (@Malala) October 5, 2018
Here is a speech Murad gave to the UN in 2016:
In 2016, Murad. a UN goodwill ambassador, urged Britain to follow Germany’s lead in allowing refugees from the Yazidi community into the UK.
She said:
Those who have lost their lives, lost everything – this would be literally saving them and giving them a new life, if the UK were going to do that.
In 2015, Germany opened its doors to more than 1,000 Yazidi women and children who had managed to escaped Isis, offering physical and emotional care to treat the abuses they experienced while in captivity.
The president of the European Council has praised Mukwege and Murad:
I congratulate both winners of this year's #NobelPeacePrize. They have my deepest respect for the courage, compassion and humanity they demonstrate in their daily fight. https://t.co/30LTaqbU8R
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) October 5, 2018
The committee said both Mukwege and Murad have “helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence”.
It said:
This year marks a decade since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1820 (2008), which determined that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict constitutes both a war crime and a threat to international peace and security. This is also set out in the Rome Statute of 1998, which governs the work of the International Criminal Court. The Statute establishes that sexual violence in war and armed conflict is a grave violation of international law. A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognised and protected in war.
You can read the full citations on the Nobel peace prize website.
Watch the moment the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize is announced.
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018
Presented by Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. pic.twitter.com/fIv2yWPxE6
Updated
Last year’s winner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), has congratulated Mukwege and Murad.
It said in a statement:
Both laureates thoroughly deserve this honour through their incredible work to address sexual violence in conflict, and we look forward to working with them as Nobel laureates dedicated to a peaceful world safe from both the threats of nuclear weapons and the use of sexual violence in war, both fundamental violations of international law. The Nobel Committee has rightly chosen to highlight the role of women this year in giving the award to Nadia and Denis, and it is great to see women like Nadia leading on this issue just as they do in the disarmament movement.
Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have been given a great platform by recognising the importance of preventing sexual violence against women, as ICAN found the year since winning the Nobel to be a watershed one for nuclear disarmament thanks to the doors the Nobel Peace Prize opened and the focus it gave to our important issue. We found that when we act together in shared humanity, the human race is an unstoppable force for good and we look forward to being part of that journey with Denis and Nadia.
Congolese gynaecologist Mukwege has been tipped to win for many years, having been on the shortlist for about 10 years.
The Guardian’s editor Katharine Viner said he is “one of the greatest men alive”.
Denis Mukwege is one of the greatest men alive... Nobel peace prize 2018 won by Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad - live updates https://t.co/3irMDfzvHF
— Katharine Viner (@KathViner) October 5, 2018
In 2011, Viner met Mukwege when she wrote about Eastern Congo being the rape capital of the world and the worst place on earth to be a woman.
The centre’s [the City of Joy centre for survivors of rape] story begins in 1999, when the gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, of Bukavu’s Panzi hospital, rang his friend Christine Schuler-Deschryver, a human rights worker in the town. He said he had started to see injuries he had never seen before – women who had been raped in terrible ways, whose reproductive organs had been wrecked, who were suffering from fistulas between the vagina and rectum inflicted not just by gang rape but also by attacks with sticks, guns, bottles. “I said to Christine, this is new,” he recalls. “Their vaginas are destroyed. I couldn’t understand what was going on.”
Murad who was abducted with other Yazidi women in August 2014 when their home village of Kocho in Sinjar, northern Iraq, was attacked by Isis jihadis. was joint winner of the won the EU’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize in 2016.
The same year, she won the won the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel human rights prize.
She was captured alongside her sisters, and lost six brothers and her mother as Isis jihadis killed the village’s men and any women considered too old to be sexually exploited.
Murad, 25, is the second youngest Nobel peace prize laureate after Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 when she won in 2014.
Photograph: Ronald Zak/AP
The committee says:
They have both put their own personal security at risk by courageously combatting war crimes and securing justice for victims.
Apparently the committee have been unable to contact either Mukwege or Murad on the telephone to inform them that they have won.
If they are watching this, my heartfelt congratulations.
2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending victims of war-time sexual violence. Fellow laureate Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/MY6IdYWN1e
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018
The physician Denis Mukwege, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults. pic.twitter.com/9CrNWfj7zu
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018
Nadia Murad, awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/NeF70ig09J
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018
The committee says the Congolese doctor, Denis Mukwege has been “the foremost, most unifying symbol both nationally and internationally of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflict”.
Nadia Murad, a member of the Yazidi minority in Iraq, was captured by Isis and repeatedly raped and subjected to other abuses. The committee says she showed “uncommon courage in recounted her own suffering”.
Updated
Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad win 2018 Nobel peace prize
They are recognised for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon in war.
You can watch the announcement, which follows imminently, live here:
The former Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has expressed what is no doubt on many people’s minds when it comes to Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un being among the bookmakers’ favourites for the prize. She told Australian Associated Press:
That is an extraordinary proposition in anyone’s language.
But she had some praise for the US president’s unconventional approach.
President Trump adopted an unorthodox diplomatic stance ... he’s continued to promote the personal relationship between the two leaders as the basis for a negotiated peace.
The credentials of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, have also been touted ahead of today’s announcement. She welcomed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into the country in the face of vocal political backlash, which is ongoing. She has already been awarded the Saint Francis Lamp for Peace prize this year after she “distinguished herself in the work of reconciliation and the peaceful coexistence among peoples”
AP reports that among the nominees are the Syrian civilian aid group, White Helmets, also tipped last year, Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Edward Snowden and the UN High Commissioner for Refugee., AP reports.
The prize is worth The 2018 prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor (£750.000). ast winners who came under criticism include former U.S. President Barack Obama, who won in 2009 after less than a year in office.
Welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of this year’s Nobel peace prize ceremony.
Past winners have included luminaries such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela.
More controversial recipients include Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, in 2009, months after entering office and Aung San Suu Kyi, although in the latter case the controversy arose years after she received the award, when Myanmar was accused of genocide of the Rohingya.
There are some divisive names among this year’s bookies’ potential winners with Kim Jong-un and Monn Jae-in the bookies’ favourites (jointly) for their steps towards rapprochement between North and South Korea, followed by Donald Trump, for the same reason.
However, the bookies are often wide of the mark when it comes to the Nobel peace prize and giving it to Trump, in a year, when the US president has pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, and withdrawn funding for the UN programme for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), would raise eyebrows to say the least.
When it comes to Korea, given his past record, Kim Jong-Un would be another controversial pick. While it might be considered more palatable to give it to the South’s representative alone, most observers believe it would be premature.
Recent winners have tended to be less contentious than some of the past picks (last year’s was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).
Among the less controversial names which could be in the frame are a UN agency such as the World Food programme or the UN refugee agency. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist who treated thousands of rape victims during the war, has been touted as a deserving recipient for a number of years. For the Ethiopian prime minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed, who has restored ties with Eritrea after 20 years of enmity, and freed thousands of political prisoners, his achievements have probably come too late for him to be recognised this year.
We will find out the winner at 10am BST.
