Iraqi Yazidi activist Nadia Murad says she plans to use the money she was awarded when she won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to build a hospital in her hometown for victims of sexual abuse.
Murad, who had been held as a sex slave by Islamic State (IS) militants, on December 14 made the comments before a crowd of hundreds of people in her hometown of Sinjar in northern Iraq.
"With the money I got from the Nobel Peace Prize, I will build a hospital in Sinjar to treat ill people, mainly widows and women who were exposed to sexual abuse by Islamic State militants," she said.
She said she would be contacting humanitarian organizations "soon" to start work on the hospital.
Murad received the $1 million prize for the Nobel prize with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
Murad was among some 7,000 women and girls who were captured and forced into sexual slavery by IS fighters in 2014. She was able to escape and eventually found refuge in Germany, where she has campaigned for support for the Yazidi community.
The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam. The IS group considers them “devil worshippers.”
More than 3,000 Yazidis were killed when the militants swept into northern Iraq in 2014.
The militants have been mainly driven out of Iraq by U.S.-backed government forces.
