02/24/2026
She was bought and sold seven times in three months. Then, she stood up before the United Nations, forced the world to look her in the eye, and became a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Her story began in the small village of Kocho, Iraq, on August 3, 2014—a day that started with the hum of engines and ended in the screams of a genocide.
Nadia Murad was just 21 years old when ISIS trucks surrounded her home. Because she was Yazidi—a religious minority—the terrorists labeled her people as “devil worshippers.” The cruelty was systematic. Men and boys, including Nadia’s six brothers, were marched to the edge of the village and executed. Her mother, deemed too old to be of use, was murdered and buried in a mass grave. Nadia and other young women were packed onto buses, kidnapped into sexual slavery.
In the city of Mosul, Nadia entered a living nightmare. She was treated like property, not a human being. A high-ranking ISIS judge bought her first. Over the next ninety days, she was traded and sold seven times. She was beaten, burned with ci******es, and repeatedly violated.
When she tried to escape, her captors didn’t just catch her; they punished her with a brutal gang r**e by six men until she lost consciousness. They beat her so severely that she could no longer walk. The goal was to break her spirit, but Nadia Murad was still there.
In November 2014, a miracle happened: a door was left unlocked. Nadia slipped out into the night. Risking their own lives, a local Muslim family hid her and helped her smuggle herself out of ISIS territory.
She eventually reached a refugee camp and was later granted asylum in Germany. She was safe, and she was free. At that point, no one would have blamed her if she had chosen a quiet life of healing. Instead, she chose to go to war—not with guns, but with the truth.
In December 2015, Nadia stood before the UN Security Council. She was 22 years old, small in stature but towering in courage. She didn’t use soft words.
She told the world exactly what happened: how girls as young as nine were sold like cattle, how mothers were killed, and how a whole culture was being erased.
Her testimony did what years of news reports couldn’t. It made the world feel the pain of the Yazidi people. In 2016, the UN officially recognized the Yazidi genocide.
Nadia knew that talking wasn’t enough. In 2018, she founded Nadia’s Initiative, an organization dedicated to rebuilding villages, schools, and clinics in her homeland while providing legal support for survivors.
That same year, at age 25, she became the first Iraqi woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. While the world cheered, Nadia remained focused. She told the crowd in Oslo that the only prize she truly wanted was the liberation of every person still held captive.
Today, Nadia Murad continues to speak. Every time she tells her story, she relives the trauma, but she does it for the 10,000 Yazidis killed and the thousands still missing. She transformed her scars into a roadmap for justice. She proves that your past does not have to define your future.
Silence is a choice, but truth is a weapon, because speaking out against injustice is the first step toward stopping it for everyone.
Pain can be transformed into purpose, meaning we cannot change the bad things that happen to us, but we can choose to use those experiences to fuel a better future.
Nadia didn’t just survive; she conquered. You can be a victim of a crime, but you do not have to remain a victim in your soul.
>We Are Human Angels<
Authors
Awakening the Human Spirit
We are the authors of 'We Are Human Angels,' the book that has spread a new vision of the human experience and has been spontaneously translated into 14 languages by readers.
We hope our writing sparks something in you!
