Human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nadia Murad was recently named Pitzer College’s 2023 commencement speaker and will deliver remarks at the May 13 ceremony.

Murad, founder and president of Nadia’s Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding communities in crisis and advocating for survivors of sexual violence, is currently working on the redevelopment of the Yazidi, an ethnic minority in northern Iraq, that was attacked by the Islamic State group in 2014.

Murad, along with thousands of other women and girls, was abducted and forced into sexual slavery. She escaped, relocated to Germany, and began raising awareness about her people. She describes it all in “The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State,”  her New York Times best-selling memoir.

In 2016, she became the first United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking, received the Council of Europe Vaclav Havel Award for Human Rights, and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. In 2018, Murad was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Global Survivors Fund. The following year she was appointed as a United Nations sustainable development goals advocate.

Today, Murad is seen as a champion for survivors of genocide, sexual violence, and gender equality. For more information about the speaker and ceremony, visit pitzer.edu/commencement.