At Harvard, Nobelist Nadia Murad explains the making of an activist
Nadia Murad came to Harvard as a survivor of genocide under ISIS, an advocate for victims of sexual violence, and the first Iraqi citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her talk at the Memorial Church, presented by the Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture Series, focused on her personal journey and how her ordeal turned her into an activist. As moderator Jennifer Leaning, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained at the outset Wednesday, the talk didn’t deal with the details of Murad’s imprisonment. (Her book, “The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State,” describes the rape and torture she endured as a prisoner.) Rather, she examined the events leading up to her capture in the ISIS attacks of 2014, and how they shaped her actions afterward. Murad grew up in Iraq’s Sinjar District....