Wasn't easy for me to talk about being a sex slave, says Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad

Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad was in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US when she received the news about her winning the coveted peace award.

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Murad, 25, told the Nobel website that she hoped the recognition would act as a "voice for all women who are suffering from sexual violence in conflict in many other places."

Murad, an Iraqi was abducted in 2014 by Islamic State(IS) terrorists along with several thousand other Yazidi women and raped by the jihadists.

"It wasn't easy for me to go out and speak about what happened to me because it wasn't easy, and specifically for women in the Middle East to go and talk about (being) sex slaves," she said.

The Nobel committee in a statement said Nadia Murad was just one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS.

"The abuses were systematic, and part of a military strategy. Thus they served as a weapon in the fight against Yazidis and other religious minorities," the Sweden-based Nobel committee said.

After a three-month nightmare, Nadia Murad managed to flee. Following her escape, she chose to speak openly about what she had suffered. In 2016, at the age of just 23, she was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, the Nobel committee informed.

"It means a lot, not just for me, for all of these women in Iraq and all the world," an elated Muradi said after hearing the news about the peace award being given to her this year.

"For those small communities that are being persecuted, this prize tells me that their voices are being heard," she said in Kurdish translated by her fiance Abid Shamdeen.

"We hope (it) will be a voice for all the women that are suffering from sexual violence in conflict in many other places," the 2018 Nobel laureate added.

Murad shares the peace award with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege who won the prize for his fight against sexual violence in war and armed conflicts.

"Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have both put their personal security at risk by courageously combating war crimes and seeking justice for the victims. They have thereby promoted the fraternity of nations through the application of principles of international law," the Nobel committee said in a statement while annoucing this year's winners.