Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a survivor of human trafficking at the hands of ISIS, has been appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The UNODC is the lead UN agency that combats all forms of human trafficking, including sexual slavery and forced labor.
According to the UNODC, during her Ambassadorship, Nadia will concentrate on advocacy efforts and raise awareness about the plight of the countless victims of human trafficking, especially refugee women and girls.
Prior to her Ambassadorship appointment, Nadia had already met with various heads of state and global leaders to raise the plight of Yazidi victims of human trafficking.
Nadia, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2016,” testified in December 2015 before the UN Security Council about the plight of the Yezidi ethnic and religious minority under ISIS.
She told the UN Security Council that she had been living with her family when ISIS fighters attacked her village in August 2014. ISIS fighters, she said, had taken her to Mosul. She was bought and sold on various times.
ISIS had made Yazidi women into “flesh to be trafficked in,” Nadia told the UN body. She added that “This is collective suffering.”
“Thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved by a terrorist organization, IS, that is committing genocide. And yet no one is being held to account. I am honoured to represent Nadia in her courageous quest for legal accountability,” Amal Clooney, attorney for Nadia, said in a statement.
According to Nick Grono, head of the Freedom Fund, over 3,000 Yazidi women and girls have been enslaved by ISIS. The extremist group, Grono said, was advocating for the revival of slavery.
Indeed, giving voice to and strengthening the presence of women, such as Nadia Murad, in all arenas to combat radicalism will only lead to the defeat of such extremist groups.