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Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad | |
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Date |
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Location | Oslo, Norway |
Presented by | Norwegian Nobel Committee |
Reward(s) | 9.0 million SEK ($ 1.01M) |
First awarded | 1901 |
Website | Official website |
The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege (b. 1955) and Nadia Murad (b. 1993) "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on 5 October 2018 in Oslo, Norway.[1] "Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," according to the award citation.[2] After reading the citation, Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the impact of this year's award is to highlight sexual abuse with the goal that every level of governance take responsibility to end such crimes and impunities.
The citation also highlighted the historic context of the 2018 award: "This year marks a decade since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1820 (2008), which determined that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict constitutes both a war crime and a threat to international peace and security. This is also set out in the Rome Statute of 1998, which governs the work of the International Criminal Court. The Statute establishes that sexual violence in war and armed conflict is a grave violation of international law. A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognised and protected in war."[1]
Mukwege is the first Congolese and Murad the seventeenth woman and first Iraqi to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Each delivered a Nobel lecture on December 10 at Oslo City Hall as part of the Nobel Peace Prize Award ceremony, which took place among main events scheduled during the December 9–11 "Nobel days in Oslo".[3]