Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their work in fighting sexual violence in conflicts around the world.
The pair won the award for their "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war," Nobel committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said in unveiling the winners in Oslo.
BREAKING NEWS:
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. #NobelPrize #NobelPeacePrize pic.twitter.com/LaICSbQXWM
Nadia Murad is one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army. The abuses were systematic and part of a military strategy. They served as a weapon in the fight against Yazidis and other religious minorities. #NobelPrize
— 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 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
LIVE: Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad for their work on ending sexual violence as a weapon of war. Watch: https://t.co/ruKL8ArrCz pic.twitter.com/3TyD1bx8NH
— Reuters TV (@ReutersTV) October 5, 2018
"A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognised and protected in war," she said.
Both Mukwege and Murad have come to represent the struggle against a global scourge which goes well beyond any single conflict, as the ever-expanding #MeToo movement has shown.
Mukwege, 63, was recognised for two decades of work to help women recover from the violence and trauma of sexual abuse and rape in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Women, children and even babies just a few months old, Mukwege has treated tens of thousands of victims of rape at Panzi hospital which he founded in 1999 in South Kivu.
Known as "Doctor Miracle", he is an outspoken critic of the abuse of women during war who has described rape as "a weapon of mass destruction."
Alongside Mukwege, the committee honoured Murad, a 25-year-old Iraqi woman from the Yazidi community who in 2014 was kidnapped by Daesh extremist group and endured three months as a sex slave before managing to escape.
"Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have both put their personal security at risk by courageously combating war crimes and seeking justice for the victims," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
"They have thereby promoted the fraternity of nations through the application of principles of international law."
Literature Prize
With the postponement of this year's Literature Prize for the first time in 70 years over a #MeToo scandal at the Swedish Academy, Friday's peace award was the most highly anticipated Nobel announcement this year.
The award will be presented at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of prize creator Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and scientist.
Here is the full list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates from 1901, when the prize was first awarded. Last year, the prize went to nuclear disarmament group ICAN.
- 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
- 2016: Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia)
- 2015: The National Dialogue Quartet (Tunisia)
- 2014: Kailash Satyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan)
- 2013: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
- 2012: The European Union (EU)
- 2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Tawakkul Karman (Yemen)
- 2010: Liu Xiaobo (China)
- 2009: Barack Obama (US)
- 2008: Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)
- 2007: Al Gore (US) and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- 2006: Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) and the Grameen Bank
- 2005: International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt)
- 2004: Wangari Maathai (Kenya)
- 2003: Shirin Ebadi (Iran)
- 2002: Jimmy Carter (US)
- 2001: Kofi Annan (Ghana) and the United Nations
- 2000: Kim Dae-jung (South Korea)
- 1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
- 1998: John Hume and David Trimble (Northern Ireland)
- 1997: Jody Williams (US) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
- 1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor)
- 1995: Joseph Rotblat (Britain) and the Pugwash movement
- 1994: Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres (Israel) and Yasser Arafat (PLO)
- 1993: Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (South Africa)
- 1992: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala)
- 1991: Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma)
- 1990: Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union)
- 1989: Dalai Lama (Tibet)
- 1988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
- 1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez (Costa Rica)
- 1986: Elie Wiesel (US)
- 1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
- 1984: Desmond Tutu (South Africa)
- 1983: Lech Walesa (Poland)
- 1982: Alva Myrdal (Sweden) and Alfonso Garcia Robles (Mexico)
- 1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
- 1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina)
- 1979: Mother Teresa (Albania)
- 1978: Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel)
- 1977: Amnesty International
- 1976: Betty Williams (Britain) and Mairead Corrigan (Northern Ireland)
- 1975: Andrei Sakharov (Soviet Union)
- 1974: Sean MacBride (Ireland) and Eisaku Sato (Japan)
- 1973: Henry Kissinger (US) and Le Duc Tho (Vietnam, declined)
- 1972: prize not handed out
- 1971: Willy Brandt (Germany)
- 1970: Norman Borlaug (US)
- 1969: International Labour Organisation
- 1968: Rene Cassin (France)
- 1967: prize not handed out
- 1966: prize not handed out
- 1965: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
- 1964: Martin Luther King Jr (US)
- 1963: International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies
- 1962: Linus Carl Pauling (US)
- 1961: Dag Hammarskjoeld (Sweden)
- 1960: Albert Lutuli (South Africa)
- 1959: Philip Noel-Baker (Britain)
- 1958: Georges Pire (Belgium)
- 1957: Lester Pearson (Canada)
- 1956: prize not handed out
- 1955: prize not handed out
- 1954: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
- 1953: George Marshall (US)
- 1952: Albert Schweitzer (France)
- 1951: Leon Jouhaux (France)
- 1950: Ralph Bunche (US)
- 1949: Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin (Britain)
- 1948: prize not handed out
- 1947: Friends Service Council (The Quakers), American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers)
- 1946: Emily Greene Balch (US), John Raleigh Mott (US)
- 1945: Cordell Hull (US)
- 1944: International Committee of the Red Cross
- 1943: prize not handed out
- 1942: prize not handed out
- 1941: prize not handed out
- 1940: prize not handed out
- 1939: prize not handed out
- 1938: Nansen International Office for Refugees
- 1937: Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (Britain)
- 1936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas (Argentina)
- 1935: Carl von Ossietzky (Germany)
- 1934: Arthur Henderson (Britain)
- 1933: Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) (Britain)
- 1932: prize not handed out
- 1931: Jane Addams (US) and Nicholas Murray Butler (US)
- 1930: Nathan Soederblom (Sweden)
- 1929: Frank Billings Kellogg (US)
- 1928: prize not handed out
- 1927: Ferdinand Buisson (France) and Ludwig Quidde (Germany)
- 1926: Aristide Briand (France) and Gustav Stresemann (Germany)
- 1925: Sir Austen Chamberlain (Britain) and Charles Gates Dawes (US)
- 1924: prize not handed out
- 1923: prize not handed out
- 1922: Fridtjof Nansen (Norway)
- 1921: Karl Hjalmar Branting (Sweden) and Christian Lous Lange (Norway)
- 1920: Leon Victor Auguste Bourgeois (France)
- 1919: Thomas Woodrow Wilson (US)
- 1918: prize not handed out
- 1917: International Committee of the Red Cross
- 1916: prize not handed out
- 1915: prize not handed out
- 1914: prize not handed out
- 1913: Henri La Fontaine (Belgium)
- 1912: Elihu Root (US)
- 1911: Tobias Michael Carel Asser (The Netherlands) and Alfred Hermann Fried (Austria)
- 1910: Permanent International Peace Bureau
- 1909: Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert (Belgium) and Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque (France)
- 1908: Klas Pontus Arnoldson (Sweden) and Fredrik Bajer (Denmark)
- 1907: Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italy) and Louis Renault (France)
- 1906: Theodore Roosevelt (US)
- 1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (Austria)
- 1904: Institute of International Law
- 1903: William Randal Cremer (Britain)
- 1902: Elie Ducommun (Switzerland) and Charles Albert Gobat (Switzerland)
- 1901: Jean Henri Dunant (Switzerland) and Frederic Passy (France
- With inputs from agencies
