She Escaped the Unthinkable and Chose Her Own Beginning

BUY THE BOOKS! I Choose My Beginning: A Story of Courage and Activism https://amzn.to/4j14o11 The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State https://amzn.to/4dwNaVF Nadia Murad was just 21 when ISIS attacked her village in northern Iraq. She was taken captive and endured unimaginable abuse before she escaped and went on to become one of the world's most powerful voices for survivors of genocide and wartime violence. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist, Nadia first shared her experience in her bestselling memoir, The Last Girl. Now, in her new book, I Choose My Beginning, she explores what it means to move forward and build a life beyond her past. Oprah and Nadia talk about the difference between surviving and healing and why she continues to speak out for the victims of the Yazidi genocide who are still missing. Nadia also opens up about finding love, getting married and creating a life that includes both her activism and her own happiness. Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney joins the conversation to talk about their work together seeking justice for ISIS crimes against the Yazidi people. 00:00:00 - Welcome Nadia Murad, author of “I Choose My Beginning” 00:05:40 - Why she chose to speak out 00:08:52 - Nadia wanted to rescue her niece 00:12:00 - Winning the Nobel Peace Prize 00:15:00 - Perceptions of survivors 00:18:00 - Online criticism 00:20:50 - Why Oprah admires Nadia 00:23:20 - Meeting Amal Clooney 00:27:00 - Cases for Yazidi women 00:31:30 - What Amal learned from Nadia 00:35:30 - Life in the refugee camp 00:37:35 - Falling in love 00:41:30 - Thousands of Yazidi people still missing 00:43:45 - The aftermath of war 00:51:00 - Nadia declined an operation 00:53:50 - Survival is not the end 00:56:00 - Building a new life Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/oprah/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  When you were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, they cited your refusal to remain silent.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  I didn't share my story for awards and stuff. I shared it so the world could act and also brought much more attention on conflict-related sexual violence.

• 0:22Oprah Winfrey?

  My thanks to Amal Clooney for joining us.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  ISIS had raped and abused women and girls like Nadia on a scale that we have not seen in this century. And she always said, I don't want revenge. What I care about is justice.

• 0:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi there. I'm so grateful you're joining me here on the Oprah Podcast. My guest today is a living testimony to the just extraordinary resilience of the human spirit and one of the people I admire most on this planet. She's a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist, Nadia Murad. First shared her harrowing story in her New York Times bestselling memoir, "The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State." And in that, she showed us what it means to survive the unthinkable and what it means to find actually inside yourself the courage to start speaking up for yourself

• 1:26Oprah Winfrey?

  and using your voice for others whose voices were silenced. And now she's written another book. And I just really have great respect and high regard for the title. It's called "I Choose My Beginning." "I Choose My Beginning." It's a story of, once again, courage, but also real activism. She picks up where "The Last Girl" left off. And she shares how she was able to turn her pain into strength and how she was able to turn her pain into a sense of perseverance and the freedom to choose her beginning and to choose happiness. Let's listen to her story.

• 2:12Oprah Winfrey?

  In 2014, Nadia Murad was 21 years old, the youngest of 11 children, living with her family in Khocho, a small village in northern Iraq. She dreamed of being a history teacher by day and opening a beauty salon at night. She hoped to build a life close to the people in the place she loved. Then ISIS attacked.

• 2:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Nadia is Yazidi, a religious and ethnic minority that was targeted in a campaign of genocide. Nearly 600 men and elderly women in her village were killed. Younger women and girls were kidnapped and imprisoned to be used as sexual slaves. After three weeks of daily torture and rape as a captive, Nadia escaped through the help of a neighboring family.

• 3:10Oprah Winfrey?

  You can read in depth about that harrowing tale in her first book she called "The Last Girl." After her freedom, Nadia could have chosen to live quietly. Instead, she spoke out, becoming a powerful voice for survivors around the world.

• 3:27Oprah Winfrey?

  In her new book, "I Choose My Beginning," Nadia writes about what comes after survival and what it means to build a life beyond what happens to you.

• 3:41Oprah Winfrey?

  So, welcome, Nadia. Thank you for being here.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:45Oprah Winfrey?

  So, you've said that your first book, "The Last Girl," was written from a place of trauma. How is writing this book different? "I Choose My Beginning."

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, my first book was more of like, you know, my testimony of what happened to me in ISIS captivity and what happened to my family members who were taken into captivity with me. And with that book, I really wanted the world to know that and to see rape for what it is, a weapon of war, and not just a small side effect of war. Because for so long, they have seen it as just a small thing. But what I saw and what I experienced was they used rape as a weapon of war to destroy us, to destroy our families and communities. And I wanted to share that with the world

• 4:38Speaker 01

  so that hopefully we can prevent it from happening again to other women and girls. And that's why I titled that one as "The Last Girl," because I wanted to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine.

• 4:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, unfortunately, you were not.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:57Oprah Winfrey?

  But you continue to use your voice.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 5:00Oprah Winfrey?

  To help all the girls who continue to have the same experience. So, the late, great Gloria Steinem writes this in the foreword of "I Choose My Beginning." She says, Nadia is a survivor of genocide. Her life reminds us that such crimes are never accidental. They are designed, organized, and sustained through this systematic dehumanization of others. Survival in such circumstances is not only an act of endurance, but an act of resistance. What distinguishes Nadia is what she chose to do next.

• 5:43Oprah Winfrey?

  She did not allow her story to remain only her own. You could have easily chosen to live the rest of your life quietly, avoiding any kind of further threat. So, why did you choose to speak out, Nadia?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Because someone had to speak out.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  And after I escaped captivity, I was in one of the displacement camps in northern Iraq. But then I moved to Germany with my sister. And in Germany, I had this new opportunity to build a new life. You know, people didn't know that I was a survivor of rape. My neighbors were different. The culture was different. But I feel that my survival, you know, carried with it a responsibility to tell the world what was happening to so many women and girls who didn't survive.

• 6:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And then, one of the things that I was so struck by, you write in telling my story on page 175, "Some days, I feel proud to be able to tell my story. Other days, I hate myself for sharing it." Or I'll change my mind even faster than that. I'll wake up in the morning feeling proud. I spend the day talking to journalists or politicians and go to bed angry at myself for opening up, for still living it, for still being there in the past. Survival isn't the same as finding peace. It's an ongoing negotiation with memory. Do you find that still? And I hope you're proud to tell your story today. Yes?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I mean, I am proud. And especially after I found myself that I am a part of a bigger community, a global community of survivors of rape, women, men, and children from all around the world, from different conflicts. And I feel more connected with, you know, that community, that I'm not alone. And a lot of them have shared their stories before me. So, having that community, having, you know, other women and girls and men have shared their story, it made it a little bit easier. But, you know, it's like a wound. People keep asking you to go and open that wound.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  And it never heals if you go back and keep opening it. And for years, I had to do that. Just, you know, sometimes I'll give my story five times a day to people. And it was always the same questions, what happened?

• 8:17Oprah Winfrey?

  What did they do to you?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Oprah Winfrey?

  So, you're re-traumatizing yourself every time?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Re-traumatizing over and over again. And it was not just, you know, what was needed to rescue other women and girls, what was needed to prevent this from happening. And I feel like I shared my story to give that, to say that this is how we can prevent it. This is what is happening. But they will ask different questions. And I thought, as a survivor of rape, my responsibility was to always say yes and to always tell what they wanted.

• 8:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Every time anybody asks, and one of the things you talk about in "I Choose My Beginning," is that you and your fellow sisters and women in the community didn't know the difference between a journalist or...

• 9:03Speaker 01

  No, aid worker, journalists, people will come.

• 9:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Anytime anybody asks you to tell the story, you're just telling the story in the hopes that it would help?

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Did it?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Well, the very reason I shared my story was to rescue my niece, who was my best friend.

• 9:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, Catherine, yes.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Catherine was my best friend. We grew up in the same house. And we were taken into captivity.

• 9:28Oprah Winfrey?

  So, you thought you were making people aware?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Because I survived early, but I knew what she was going through.

• 9:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And she found a phone in captivity. And she kept sharing her story from captivity.

• 9:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Every time she used that phone, I was frightened for her. I don't even know how she did it.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, but she was the reason. And I kept telling the world. I showed her messages and voice messages, photos to the world. And I felt her. She, at the very end, she decided that she couldn't take it anymore, the rape, the buying, the selling, and what they were doing to her. So, she decided to walk to safety. And then she stepped on a line.

• 10:12Oprah Winfrey?

  She stepped on a line, then?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:13Oprah Winfrey?

  She was so close.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  She...

• 10:15Oprah Winfrey?

  She had endured so much.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  The woman, the other survivor that survived, who was also with her, she said, we actually could see lights, that they were like walking toward the lights. Sorry.

• 10:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Take your time. You write about it so poignantly, so graphically. And so that by the time this happened, as a reader in the story, because I read The Last Girl. And so I knew about Catherine. And you pick up the story and Catherine is still in captivity. When you start I Choose My Beginning. And so I was like everyone else, hoping that she would finally find a way to escape or to get free. And then in the last moment, I mean, by this time, how many years had passed? That she'd been in captivity, being raped on a regular basis, trafficked.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Almost two years.

• 11:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And she documented her whole journey.

• 11:18Oprah Winfrey?

  But she was still communicating with everyone in the family with that stolen phone.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yep. And she watched me on TV. And she sent me voice messages. I have them. And she says that you speak so well. Please keep telling them what they are doing to us. And she even, at one point ISIS members took a video and showed it to her. And they told her that, oh, we actually do look alike because we have the same tattoos. We have, you know, same hair. And at one point, she said, why are you so sad? Why are you so thin? Why are you not happy?

• 11:55Oprah Winfrey?

  You're out, you're free.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. She thought that, you know, the second you survive captivity, you're free. You should be happy. But survival is never the end of the story. It was just the very first step that I took.

• 12:12Oprah Winfrey?

  It's what you were saying. It's a negotiation with memory all the time. Yeah, it doesn't bring you peace. And so when you were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, when you were only 25, you became the first Iraqi citizen and the second youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala was the youngest when she was 17. The committee awarded you the Nobel Prize. And they said, your efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. They also cited your refusal to remain silent and ashamed. What did that mean to you?

• 12:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you feel that once you got the Nobel Peace Prize, that is the attention that you wanted to bring to all of the other women who were held in captivity?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  You know, before 2014, I never even heard of the Nobel Peace Prize. But, you know, when they gave it to me, I, it was, you know, such an honor.

• 13:24Oprah Winfrey?

  It was an honor.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, to know and to, I thought of all the people who have received it before me, like Nelson Mandela. And I, I felt, you know, honored.

• 13:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And you received it along with?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Dr. Dennis McQuigge, my dear friend. And it was important because, well, first, when I shared my story, I didn't know about it. I didn't share my story for awards and stuff. I shared it so the world could, you know, prevent this and act. And then it also brought much more attention on conflict-related sexual violence. It also connected what happened to women in Iraq, to women in the DRC, in Sudan, in, you know, Kosovo, Colombia. And I feel like it was, you know, many more women and girls were recognized. It was not just me and the work of Dr. Dennis McQuigge.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  But I think the world often sees that when you receive the Nobel, you've got it all. You have the power to change things and make things better. But it's not like that. It's a recognition. It does amplify your message, open doors. But the issues that I'm, you know, working for and working to, you know, with other people like Dr. Dennis McQuigge, not no one award or one person will be able to solve them.

• 14:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Right. And you know, one of the things that I really appreciated that you brought to light in I Choose My Beginning is not just the world's perception, but even journalist's perception, the way journalists drive the perception of what it means to have been a refugee, or what it means to have been trafficked, or what it means to be a woman who, you know, has survived the atrocities that you have. And you say, they thought because the world had taught them this, that being a survivor meant all you had was your sadness and your story. They had the connections and the military and political knowledge. All I had was the ability to make people cry.

• 15:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And I was the window dressing and they were the substance. And it wasn't only men who treated survivors this way. Women at the helm of loosely defined aid organizations also required survivors to look a certain way, say certain things, and appear grateful, as they had told my friend who dared to dye her hair before an appearance. Let's speak about that for a moment. That once you were able to escape, and we're not going to talk about how you escaped, but once you were able to escape these atrocities and then use your voice for those who were voiceless, there was a kind of window dressing, as you describe it,

• 16:16Oprah Winfrey?

  put upon you, a certain way to act and to behave, and even dress when you appeared at the UN. Like, you can't wear a pretty dress. You should be dressed in black and things that are not fitting. Let's talk about that.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yes, it was not what I expected. Because, you know, I wanted to share my story. But of course, I, I didn't want them to see me for what just had happened to me. And I, the moment I shared the story, the moment those, you know, organizations, some journalists, not all, I also talk about the good experiences with the one, like, you know, the 60 Minutes and others. But then they, you know, it was everything I did. You know, I had to wear always, you know, they said, if you represent this story and this cause, you have to always wear black. There are, you know, colors you cannot. And I, I grew up loving makeup and hair.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  And I wanted to open a beauty salon, but I was not allowed to wear makeup. I remember first time I wore jeans in Germany for the language course. Someone sent a photo of me to my brother in the camp. And he called me and he was so mad. He said, you've already, you know, you're doing something you can't be both. Because that's what was he hearing from people. But then if we were so thin, they will say, okay, she cannot get over what happened to her. If we were thin, they were saying, oh, she's already over what happened to her. Falling in love was not an option. Getting married was not an option. Having children was not an option. Smiling meant you get over what happened to you. And then I lost myself.

• 17:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Because people expected you to not to ever have a life again.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  To be that very perfect victim.

• 18:03Oprah Winfrey?

  And that's why it's called I Choose My Beginning. You know, one of the things that struck me.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  But I did, to be honest, I did follow what they were.

• 18:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, in the beginning.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Oprah Winfrey?

  It took you a while to be able to write this second book. Because everyone had an expectation. Now you are a survivor. You're the spokesperson for us all. You must behave and you must act in a certain way. And you must not have a life beyond what we think your life should be.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:29Oprah Winfrey?

  You know, one of the things that surprised me so much, and as a person who, you know, has also lived through the vitriol of people saying things about you online that are not true, it did not occur to me that it had started so soon that even in 2014, 2016, people online often accused you of fabricating your truth, including saying that you had lied about your mother's death. And you write on page 113, something so powerful. You say, if my mother is alive, that's really all I need in the world. I said, I would celebrate until the day I died, but I know that she is not. My sister saw it.

• 19:11Oprah Winfrey?

  I would have given anything to be wrong for Demol's eyes to have failed her, for ISIS's plans to be different, and for my mother to show up one day at the camp wrapped in her white scarf, alive and ready to lead our family again. I would have traded everything, you say, to be the liar that these critics on Facebook accuse me of being. But to the people who were focused only on using me to send a message that would be the end of their campaign, if your mother isn't dead, then what do you have? They were asking. And you thought, I would have a mother.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:47Oprah Winfrey?

  It's fascinating to me that the take down culture came with the lies and stories in the face of your truth. Were you surprised by that kind of vitriol?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Not really, because I grew up in a culture, in a country where women were always like accused of doing things like if a woman wanted to get a divorce because she was living in an abusive relationship, they will always come up with stories that she is, you know, doing it for another reason. So it was, you know, they said that I never went to school, but I went to school. And they saw that I went to high school, actually.

• 20:21Oprah Winfrey?

  But when you know that your mother has been killed as a part of a genocide and that your sister saw it, and, I mean, nothing could be more horrific. And then for people to tell you, oh, your mother isn't, her mother isn't even dead.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, she's making that up.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was even harder because they kept reaching out to my sisters-in-law and, you know, through fake social media accounts and telling them all these stories. And my sister-in-laws were like, they would call me and they say, people, you know, are talking about your mother like this. You have to stop doing this work. It's, you know, they see that you are not the best to do this work. And I said, well, my mother.

• 21:08Oprah Winfrey?

  First, they thought you were the best, and then they say you're not the best. You know what? One of the reasons I say that you are one of the women I admire most in the world, not because of the Nobel Peace Prize. That's a wonderful thing. But I also understand that getting an award doesn't define who you are, nor change who you are. But the courage, just the courage.

• 21:34Oprah Winfrey?

  That it took for you to tell the truth about what had happened to you in a culture that sees in a culture where I think it was your own cousin who had been killed for leaving home to be with another man.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:55Oprah Winfrey?

  The man is set free and goes back to his wife. Your cousin is murdered.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:01Oprah Winfrey?

  So for you, as a young girl, to have been trafficked and abused and tortured, and then to have the courage to say out loud, this is what happened to me. That, where did that come from?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  You know, I had to do it. I just, I just saw something and I experienced something. And I couldn't feel that I, you know,

• 22:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Be silent about it.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Or silent, but I didn't feel free. I was in Germany and I was always looking over my shoulder. I feel like

• 22:36Oprah Winfrey?

  They were coming after you.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then I was always having, you know, these dreams. But I was also always like constantly getting these messages from Catherine, telling me that she's been sold again, that she's been raped again, that she's been exchanged with, you know, another survivor, victim back then in captivity. And I, I wanted to do what my sisters did. My sisters chose not to share their stories. They wanted to rebuild their lives. And, and sometimes I feel that they made the right decision because people didn't tell them that they should be the perfect victims to, you know, dress a certain way, to do certain things. They were, I feel like they were rebuilding their lives faster than me.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  And they were, and I'm the youngest, you know, I was the youngest of 11 children. I was so loved in my family by my siblings. And they feel so sorry for me that I was going through all of it. But I just, every day that I didn't share my story, I felt that I was, I didn't have purpose. As, as horrible as this story was, as hard as it was to share it, it also saved me from my own.

• 23:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you also met human rights lawyer and law professor, Amal Clooney, in 2016. And that turned out to be a game changer. You say it was the first time you were able to actually see a path to survivors to receive justice in a courtroom. Because up until then, you felt like you were just being used and passed from telling your story to one person and another person. And it didn't matter that you were telling the story.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:19Oprah Winfrey?

  And then along comes Amal. Amal joins us. Hello. Thank you for being here.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Hi, thank you so much for having me.

• 24:28Oprah Winfrey?

  So I heard it was 10 years ago that a colleague actually persuaded you to meet Nadia for just one hour. What were your first impressions of her then?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember the meeting so well. I was at home in London. And I remember saying to my husband, you know, this woman's coming over. It's supposed to be for a new case. And he was like, you don't have time for a new case. And I said, I know, I'm just going to hear her out and I'll refer someone to help her. And then Nadia walked in. She, she was incredibly shy. I remember she, she didn't really make eye contact. She didn't speak English, so we had an interpreter.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  And she started telling me about the horrors that she had just escaped from, losing six of her brothers in one day, and her mother, and being in captivity, and the torture that she had to experience. And, you know, maybe two hours later, I remember George walking past the living room and he just caught sight of me and Nadia sitting on the floor, I think, holding hands. And he just looked at me, knowing that I'm taking the case.

• 25:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  It was 10 years ago and I'm, I'm still working on it.

• 25:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And you've been working together to seek justice for Yazidi women. And you've succeeded, actually, in the first three cases where ISIS members have been convicted of genocide. What did, what did this mean succeeding in those cases? What did that mean for survivors?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  I mean, I think Nadia would agree. It was against the odds and it shouldn't have been. This should have been the easiest case I've ever taken on. We went to the UN Security Council. We went to world leaders and said, you know, are there crimes that are more gruesome than this? This is genocide. Are there victims that are more worthy than this? You know, is this a perpetrator group? Anyone cares to protect? It's ISIS, the most reviled and dangerous terror group in the world. And yet, we didn't get any kind of institutional action. There was no global response beyond the battlefield. There was no initiative to ensure that there could be trials of ISIS fighters, including those who had raped and abused women and girls

• 26:47Speaker 02

  like Nadia on a scale that we have not seen in this century. And it should have been an easy case and it wasn't. And I have to say, from the beginning, you know, Nadia showed this grit and this determination. You know, she was fearless from that first day, even when she couldn't speak English. Yet she was showing me messages on her phone from her niece in captivity, from ISIS. And she always said, I don't want revenge. What I care about is justice and to have the chance to face my abusers in a court of law.

• 27:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Could you believe she had those messages? Could you even believe?

• 27:22Speaker 02

  The first day I met her, she had messages on WhatsApp. And I was telling her, Nadia, this is evidence. You are receiving messages from the perpetrators of these crimes. It's the first piece of evidence I collected. And I went on to collect, you know, hundreds of statements from survivors who had endured things similar to Nadia and her family. And I, I didn't know if we were going to succeed. But I saw an opportunity in European countries that recognize a principle called universal jurisdiction, which means certain crimes are so heinous, you know, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, that you can prosecute them in your country's courts, even if they took place abroad.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  And so we started working very closely with prosecutors in Germany and across Europe, connecting them with the evidence that we gathered, connecting them with witnesses. And the very first trial in which we succeeded in securing a conviction of an ISIS fighter, I actually represented Nadia's cousin. She, she talks about this in the book. I think we, we call her Hoda in the book. It's not her real name, you know, to protect her identity. And it was incredible. Hoda was, had no education. She, you know, Nadia says in the book, she'd never heard of the word court. She didn't know what a court was. But she had been taken into captivity with her daughter. She had to watch her captor

• 28:50Speaker 02

  kill her daughter before her eyes in, in a gruesome way. And she had to watch it and wasn't able to

• 28:57Oprah Winfrey?

  This is what he left her outside in, in the heat.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. She was a five, so Nadia's cousin had a five-year-old daughter. She was chained to the bars along a window.

• 29:08Oprah Winfrey?

  And left outside in the heat.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  To hang in the, in the heat of the summer in Fallujah and eventually died of dehydration. And, I mean, you know, as a mother, it's just unimaginable what she had gone through. And, and then one day she hears that the perpetrator has been caught and he's in Europe. And, you know, would she be willing to go and give evidence in the case? And she said yes, you know, to honor her daughter's memory, to, to, to do it for her community. And she put herself in a witness protection program. She went to a country that she didn't know. She gave evidence in a court over seven days in a, you know, with an interpreter and in a courtroom where she had to stare down the man who held her captive.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  And, you know, she became the first Yazidi ISIS victim to, to face her captor in a court of law. And when the day of the verdict came, it was incredible. The judge announced a conviction for genocide. In that moment, the perpetrator, the ISIS fighter who'd enslaved Nadia's cousin, collapsed on the floor and she stood tall and strong. And in that moment, you could just see the power of justice. It had reversed the roles. You know, she stood tall and, and he was on the floor. And he got a life sentence. And that was our first victory in court.

• 30:35Oprah Winfrey?

  I know. Nadia reveals that story with such poignancy in I Choose My Beginning because he had a wife who also was a part of that.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  A German wife. She was put on trial first and then, and then he was. He was Iraqi. And, you know, subsequent to that, I represented other Yazidi victims in trials that led to, I think it was six other cases where we got convictions as well, not only genocide, but crimes against humanity and war crimes. And, you know, for us, that was a huge success. At the same time, it's a massive failure because, you know, tens of thousands of ISIS fighters left Europe to go and fight this war in Syria and Iraq. And there should have been, I remember Nadia telling me, you know, my worst fear is that these people will just shave off their beards and go back to their normal life in a way that the victims never can. And I, I think in the book, she, she talks about

• 31:29Speaker 02

  the interminable wait for justice and accountability being an open wound. And it, and it is a wound. It's like another type of trauma after the crimes. If people deny them and if there's impunity. And unfortunately, you know, most of the time, we're living in an age of impunity at the moment. And we created an exception in these cases. But, but the system is incredibly broken.

• 31:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Nadia writes this about you, Amal, on page 185. "From Amal, I learned that talking to survivors didn't require asking them to relive the worst moments of their lives. Everyone was able to approach us with respect and sensitivity. And survivors had the right to say no to anyone who asked for their stories." I'm wondering Was that a learned skill for how to get the information that you need that is going to be evidence for you? And yet not re-traumatize the person you're trying to get the information from?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  I have to say, when I read the book, I was really touched by that. It's not something we've ever discussed. And I was actually horrified that it was something that was so rare in her experience. You know, of course, we learn how to do interviews. As lawyers, you get special training for these kinds of cases. But really, this is just, it's just respect for someone that you only ask what you need to. And it was, you know, I remember when we did a, we did a really detailed statement. It was only once we knew there was a case coming up. Before that, I didn't need to know some details. And even with her cousin, there were some details that I've never asked her about what happened to herself as opposed to, to her daughter.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  So it should be obvious. But I think Nadia's experience is that actually it was quite rare for people to, to deal with her that way. And that's really unfortunate.

• 33:25Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you want to say about Amal and her work?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Well, Amal is special because just like what you, you know, what you read from the book, but it was just so easy to open up to her. And I love the way she just treats survivors as humans first, you know, and not just stories. And for me, it was a very different experience. I felt for the first time that someone was, you know, actually asking me questions to do something and not just to put it out there for, for the world. So it's her work, I have, I learned so much from her. I keep learning from her. She's an amazing person to be around and she, she just inspires me.

• 34:15Oprah Winfrey?

  I just read that you were in Malawi recently for the Clooney Foundation. And I was reading about what you all are doing with legal scholarships for women, Amal, who will become advocates for human rights for other people. Like starting a scholarship program just for women to become lawyers to do what you're doing in the world. I just wanted to say bravo to you for that. And do you have a lot of takers for that?

• 34:45Speaker 02

  I did. I literally stood in a field in one school after another and told girls about their rights and told them they couldn't be married before they're 18, no matter what anyone says. And I spoke to so many of them who said, I didn't know those were my rights. And then I said, how, you know, does anyone here want to be a lawyer? And lots of hands went up. And so I went to the top law school in the country and, you know, we're helping them with actually AI tools and also creating 30 scholarships for young girls to go to law school. So I'm really excited to see all of their progress. It's, it's an incredible country with so much potential, but such great harms affecting women and girls. And we're trying to connect them to a justice system that can actually deliver remedies.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  But, you know, there's less than a thousand lawyers in the entire country. So I'm trying to get more girls into, you know, into the justice system and, and help lawyers use technology to be more efficient in, in helping.

• 35:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, thank you for that work. Thank you for being with us, Amal. Thank you, Amal Clooney.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

• 35:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. Maybe you're feeling it too, with so many ways to reach each other. It can be easy to mistake being reachable for being truly connected. But I've learned that what many people are longing for is just to be heard, truly heard by another person. That's what we're trying to do here on the Oprah Podcast. I see you contemplating and I can see that you're seeing yourself a different way after you said that. Making space for real connection. Because every time we stop and actually listen to each other, something shifts, something opens. AT&T believes that too.

• 36:30Oprah Winfrey?

  The right connection at the right moment between the right people can change the course of a day, a relationship, and even a whole life. So the next time you reach for your phone to call someone you love, know that AT&T is with you, keeping that connection strong. Because AT&T is there when the connection matters. And connecting changes everything.

• 37:01Oprah Winfrey?

  So one of the things that I also really appreciated you sharing in the book is when you were living in the refugee camp, you write on page 92, you say, "Sometimes we pass things that were familiar enough to remind us that we were actually still on earth. The sun rose and set, families sat together eating and talking the way we used to in Iraq. The pleasures of walking, riding a bicycle, studying outside, talking to your friends. These are universal. That's what refugees are looking for, I think. Not big things, but small moments and scenes that remind them of where they're from

• 37:43Oprah Winfrey?

  and tell them that they will survive in this new place." And you say, "One evening, we passed a sign for a market with the word halal written in Arabic, and that made us smile." I love this passage because it's just a, it's a, it's a beautiful reminder, I think, that we all actually want the same things, no matter what our circumstances. And after you achieved your freedom, escaping, what were the things that you appreciated the most?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Well, every time someone was kind to me. It was, it just made me feel that like I would smile. And it was like, okay, there is still goodness in the world and that people were, there are kind people. We just need to find them and surround ourselves with them. And I love just, you know, looking at the sky.

• 38:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Looking at the sky?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, every day because I-

• 38:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Because when you were in captivity, you couldn't see it?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  No, but also I grew up in a small village when, you know, half of the year we slept on the rooftop to avoid heat. And it was, you know, where I have them, my favorite memories from my mother sharing stories on the rooftop and just watching the sky. And she would, you know, the village was so small. She would always say, but the sky is huge and you can see that the world is big and you can't dream big. And so every, every day, and especially after I survived, just like looking at the sky.

• 39:17Oprah Winfrey?

  At the sky. And then you dared fall in love. Abed was your, was one of your interpreters at one point, right? You share the story of meeting and falling in love with your husband. And you write, "I will always remember something Abed told me that year." You say, "When it became clear that our love could survive even the most shattering tragedy, he said, 'You will never have to go through any of this alone.'" Did you even ever think that you could fall in love, have a husband, go on with your life?

• 39:54Speaker 01

  No, I remember I went into a meeting with a rich American guy and he talked to me and he gave me his business card. And on the business card before meeting my husband, he wrote, "Dear Nadia, if you ever get married, please let me know. I will pay for your wedding." And I smiled and I kept the card. And I said, "Well, I, I didn't know that I'm even allowed to, to get married or fall in love." And when I-

• 40:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Why? Because being a woman who had been-

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was told that, you know, I wanted to do the work more than anything. But I was told that you can't be both. You have to, if you do the work, then that is your life. And even when I met Abed, you know, my husband, I, I showed him a photo of my niece who lives in Germany. And I said, "By the way, she's single." I was trying to, you know, set them up and I'm like, because I didn't know that I can, you know-

• 40:51Oprah Winfrey?

  That you were allowed?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I was allowed. But he was different, you know? The moment I, I saw him, he said, "I'm sorry for what other man did to you." And he was the first man to tell me- Yeah, who, who would tell me that, who apologized for what his fellow man did, you know, to me. Because it was true. It's, you know, what happened to me and my family and all these women and girls. It's what, you know, men did, you know, this to us and they keep doing it to us. So from that, I just felt that, oh my God, like someone said that. And he just, it was easy to talk to him. And I told him that I had just lost my niece and-

• 41:35Oprah Winfrey?

  And once he asked you to marry him, even people in your family, your brother, whose opinions you valued so, everybody said you can't get married.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was, there were so many-

• 41:47Oprah Winfrey?

  You must continue to be the survivor-

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:50Oprah Winfrey?

  -who tells the sad story.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:52Oprah Winfrey?

  And if you go ahead and get married, then that means you've moved on.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  And that was the, the best beginning I chose. You know, I decided that I can be both. And with him, I felt that the work was easier. He cares, he listens, he's loyal. I trusted him and, and he met me when I was in a very, you know, difficult time in my life. I told him how much I hated myself. I told him that I, he made me feel that my life was worth living it. And my family was like, you know, people will go to them and they make up these stories that if I do that, I will give up on the work that was hopefully going to rescue.

• 42:33Oprah Winfrey?

  People didn't want you to marry, fall in love, have another life because they thought that you would lose your passion-

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:40Oprah Winfrey?

  -for the work as an activist.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:43Oprah Winfrey?

  And what you did was prove to them and the rest of the world, but more importantly to yourself, that you could do both.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yes, and I did.

• 42:52Oprah Winfrey?

  And you did.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  And it was the best thing.

• 42:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And the best thing.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, more than 2,000 Ucidi women and children abducted by ISIS are still missing, including some of your family. What do you want to say? To the world about that.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Those are human beings and they have families who are waiting for them, like my family. We've been working, you know, in my organization with families. We have names, we have their ages. We know when was the last time they, you know, communicated with their loved ones. But it's, it's hard to convince the world to go and look for these women and children.

• 43:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Because the world doesn't seem to care.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  No, no. My niece was only 40 days old when she was taken. And today she is 12 years old if she's alive, still missing in captivity. My nephew was 11 years old and now he's 23 years old. My sister-in-law was in her early twenties and, you know, more than 40 members of my family were taken into captivity. So almost 12, 13 years later, we are still waiting for them. And families will never give up. Even if the world does, we will never give up one day. As I was preparing for my book a week ago, they just, Iraqi government released a list of remains who have been identified.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  And the very first name was my brother Haji. So after your interview, I go back to DC to do something and then I go to the funeral in Iraq. So it keeps happening because, you know, war is like that. You don't, even when the war ends, there is so much more and questions that need to be answered.

• 44:41Oprah Winfrey?

  So they just found his?

• 44:42Speaker 01

  His remains, you know, finally been identified.

• 44:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And they were able to identify them?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Which is what closure means to my, you know, his wife and his two children. But then, you know, my mother's remains are still there. My Catherine's remains have not been found. Miss Green's remains have not been found. My brother Khari, so many cousins and friends. And I think that's what a lot of people don't know about war. It's not just, you know, when it happens and how many people were killed and taken, but what comes after, it's even harder because you just keep waiting and waiting.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Remains are, you know, exhumed, but then you have to keep DNA and then you wait. And some people never get what they wait for.

• 45:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And also, from what you're describing, there is no, there is no closure.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:45Oprah Winfrey?

  There's no such thing as closure. People saying, oh, you go back and you have the funeral and you have closure. There is no closure because then there's the next funeral and then there's the next waiting.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yep. And you know, I, one mistake I made was when two of my brothers were identified, I went back for the funeral. And so the government gives you like a whole file on how they found them, how they were killed and everything about, you know, the remains. And I read them. I read the two files and it was one of those, you know, big mistakes that I made because they tell you that they were alive for a while. You know, they tell you that they were shot in the head multiple times. They tell you that, you know, how much of their bodies are now, you know, we have them because they never give you the whole thing.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  It's just can be like a little bit of their body that have been identified.

• 46:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my God.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then for, for a month, I was just like imagining them, okay, like this is how they were killed. And it was perfect. And I promised myself that when my mother's remain, with Catherine's remains, with the rest of my brothers, I don't want to do that because I want to remember them for, you know, when they were alive.

• 47:02Oprah Winfrey?

  So you won't read the reports on how it happened or?

• 47:05Speaker 01

  No, not, no.

• 47:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Not anymore?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Not anymore, no. It's not healthy for us, but yeah, that's, but we still call it closure because at least...

• 47:15Oprah Winfrey?

  You know that one?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Was found, but there isn't a question in your mind that they're living someplace? You know that they were all shot.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, my brother Said, he was like, he was with some of them. And he said that they were still alive, but he had to leave or he would have been shot.

• 47:34Oprah Winfrey?

  The brother who escaped?

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:36Oprah Winfrey?

  So how many brothers were thrown in the?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Nine.

• 47:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Nine?

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:40Oprah Winfrey?

  And one escaped?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  One brother and two half-brothers.

• 47:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Escaped.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  And six didn't.

• 47:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Didn't?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I think I often think about them because their last moment was seeing ISIS taking their wives and daughters and sisters into slavery before they were killed. Because they knew as they were taken outside to be killed in mass graves, they, they looked at us in the school and they knew that ISIS was going to enslave their wives and their daughters. And I think that was the last thing on, that was on their minds, knowing that those people...

• 48:21Oprah Winfrey?

  And that there was nothing they could do?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  No, no. And you know, I, you know, my brothers and my family is just one story, but we really, like we grew up really poor. My mother raised 11 children on her own on a small farm. And we were just, you know, poor, normal people. And then your neighbors turn overnight against you. And then, you know, in war, things change so fast. Like, like one day we were, one moment, we were on, on the field packing onions to send them to the market. And the next, we were attacked and then we were surrounded and then we were separated and then we were in buses and then we were touched.

• 49:05Oprah Winfrey?

  And this isn't a matter of days?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Hours.

• 49:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Hours?

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Hours. Like you couldn't process one thing before the next, well, you know, happened. Like they will tell us, okay, go to the school. And on the way to school, they started like taking our earrings and phones and then, you know, separated us. And then we are hearing them killing men and then they're like putting women in the back of the trucks and then men are taking our...

• 49:31Oprah Winfrey?

  They took the older women and shot them?

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:34Oprah Winfrey?

  And took the younger women and separated them to be trafficked and sold as sex slaves?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then it's not like, you know, your soul to a man and just like one time. But then it's like they can get, you know, as Catherine in her message says, sometimes she was in, in one house with nine girls that were this, you know, the same ISIS member will take them. And, and some of them, my nieces, were, were nine and 10. Today, they don't even know how to tell their stories because when you go through it at that age. And I said in my first...

• 50:07Oprah Winfrey?

  They were nine and 10 years old?

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yes. In my first book, I say that I still, in that situation, I felt grateful that I was 21 because I looked at those girls who were nine and 10 and 11 and I, I didn't, because...

• 50:22Oprah Winfrey?

  They didn't even have the language?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:24Oprah Winfrey?

  To describe what was happening?

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Even after they survived, they don't know how to say it.

• 50:29Oprah Winfrey?

  To say what happened.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  And I really, they're, you know, not just, you know, with these idiots, but I have visited so many, you know, clinics where, you know, young girls will share their stories through paintings and stuff because they don't know how to express it.

• 50:43Oprah Winfrey?

  To use the language to describe what is the horror that has happened.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but that is, that is a...

• 50:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Also, young girls and in this culture where sex isn't discussed?

• 50:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:54Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't see people with sexual behaviors on television or in advertising or anything?

• 51:01Speaker 01

  No, no. You don't, you don't study it in school. They go through it very quickly.

• 51:05Oprah Winfrey?

  And if you're not a virgin when you get married, you are in trouble. It's a crime.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  It's not, you're not in trouble. It's a crime. And the shame, it's, it's not on you alone. It's on your cousins, your aunts, your whole family.

• 51:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Because you share the story of when your cousin left?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:21Oprah Winfrey?

  The friend punished herself forever, saying, I should have known, I should have known, I should have known that she was falling in love with someone. Because when she then left to be with the person that she'd fallen in love with?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:37Oprah Winfrey?

  They find them and the woman is killed.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  And the guy is left to go back to his normal.

• 51:43Oprah Winfrey?

  The guy gets to go back and he's never charged.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  That's the case of like honor killing is just so even today it's common. It's very common and it happened in my life and it was.

• 51:54Oprah Winfrey?

  That's why I still, I continue to say how extraordinary that you were willing to tell your story. Because were you ever concerned also about what would happen to your family with you telling this story?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was because I know like, you know, if.

• 52:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Your family's ostracized.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  If you sure and then, for example, if my nieces want to get married, the family of the guy would say, okay, but her aunt lost her virginity. And hey, she's not virgin. She shared the story of rape. And that's why I shared the story of how they were trying to make us virgin again.

• 52:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you tell, shared that story.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:32Oprah Winfrey?

  That you were at a hospital.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, trying to give us surgeries that, you know, cover a crime with the surgery.

• 52:38Oprah Winfrey?

  But the story is you were at a hospital. They take all the girls to this new clinic. Was it a clinic or a hospital? And say, all of you girls who've been raped, we're going to make you virgins again.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:50Oprah Winfrey?

  We're going to restore your virginity through this operation.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And you refused to have the operation. Why?

• 52:57Speaker 01

  I refused and I later, after I talked to some of my friends and girls from my village, I realized other girls refused. I refused that because what happened to me was not my fault. And I didn't want to do something that will make society happy. You know, it was about them. It was never about making me, you know, feel that nothing happened. And my niece and my sister that they took the surgery. And today it's their biggest regret.

• 53:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Because?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Because they learned that, you know, they said yes to something that was never about them. They told us it will make us feel that it has never happened. But it's not, it's not that, you know, the, it's, it becomes a part of you.

• 53:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  It's a permanent mark.

• 53:44Oprah Winfrey?

  You can't do a couple of stitches and change it.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  It doesn't, it doesn't erase what happened in captivity. The man who touched you, the man who like, you know, came and took you and over and over. It's one surgery is not gonna erase that. And if I had not shared my story before that, because some people knew that I did, maybe I would have taken it and I would, but I'm glad I shared. But I also thought of Catherine. I was like, what happens if I take the surgery? And then I tell the world, well, my niece is being raped, but look, I'm virgin. I'm not. And I didn't do it.

• 54:22Oprah Winfrey?

  I've had my virginity returned.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's risky. And that's why you don't see a lot of women sharing their story of rape.

• 54:29Oprah Winfrey?

  And also what is, what is really pretty, I think, commendable is that your husband, your now husband, Abbott, came to you and said, I'm sorry for what had happened to you. And wasn't judging you because of it. Because that's what so many, that's what the culture did.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Culture says you're no longer.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  No, a full human. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it was interesting because he is from my community. He is from, he moved to the U.S. back in 2009, but.

• 55:04Oprah Winfrey?

  But he is from there.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but having like someone from there say that, it was just, I was shocked, to be honest. I was shocked and.

• 55:15Oprah Winfrey?

  You said, this is a man worth paying attention to.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad I did.

• 55:19Oprah Winfrey?

  And I'm glad you did. You've said, survival is not the end of the story. That recovery is something that you keep choosing. What are those choices that you make on a regular basis, Nadia? That you keep choosing to recover? Because it never goes away, as you said. It's, it's a negotiation with memory.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  You know, I, I choose recovery in small things and not just, you know, big things that I do through my work. I do small things like, you know, making plans with friends and making time for friends and going to a thrift store to pick up an outfit for this interview. I go on long runs. I, I do my hair and makeup. I try to see, you know, what I want to do 10 years from now, 20 years from now. I watch Seinfeld with my husband every night. And it's just those small things that I keep.

• 56:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you get the jokes?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Being from Iraq, you do? Okay.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, finally. Yeah, I watched, you know, the first time.

• 56:29Oprah Winfrey?

  I was just wondering if you come, if you're coming from another country, do you get the jokes? You do?

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:36Oprah Winfrey?

  You didn't at first.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:37Oprah Winfrey?

  But your husband helped you.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah. But now it's one of my favorite. And so, yeah, small things, when, you know, people send me makeup, it brings me joy. Yeah.

• 56:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So you've written the book. It's called, I Choose My Beginning. Do you, you have to keep choosing though, don't you?

• 56:56Speaker 01

  It's not a one time. You have to keep choosing recovery and new beginnings. And yeah, survival is just the very first step.

• 57:06Oprah Winfrey?

  But I'm wondering, I have one of my daughter girls who I mentor and who is a member, like a member of our family now, I've known since 2013. She survived the Rwanda genocide as a 10-year-old. And she, you know, has been able to go on with her life and, you know, have a, have a beautiful existence. And I'm wondering, for you and that kind of survival, I know you never forget it. You never forget it. But do you feel that you've been able to construct another life, an alternate life?

• 57:50Oprah Winfrey?

  You wouldn't have had this life if the genocide hadn't happened. Have you constructed a life that can make you fulfilled and happy?

• 58:00Speaker 01

  I think that's what I'm focused on right now. I'm trying to have that life. I don't want my life to be entirely consumed by my work and what happened to me. And that is why I do simple things and do things for myself that make my life more.

• 58:16Oprah Winfrey?

  But how do you heal when you're constantly talking to other women who are going through the same thing? So isn't that re-triggering?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  It is, but it's, it is also, it means that I am helping other people to open up. I was just in New York and I was doing an event at DVF with, you know, about the book. And two women stood up in the middle of the audience and said that they were raped in church. They were raped through, you know, social media and then at home. And every time I help someone else to open up, to say that, you know, they're not alone and they've gone through it, it, I do feel, you know, it's hard. You have to think about it. I have to connect with them. But it is my, my job. But also, you know, I, even if I don't share this story, like when I think of Catherine, my niece.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  I have, I have to think of, of when was the last time I saw her? The last time was in captivity. So I have to think back.

• 59:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Of all the Cathrins that are still there?

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I have to think, I have to go back to Mosul in my mind to see Catherine again.

• 59:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  I have, I go back every time I listen to her voice messages. So, but at the same time, I'm trying to build that normal life with my husband, talking to my family members, making friends. And I think the past will always be there and it will always be part of me. And I just need to make peace with it.

• 59:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Make peace with it. Thank you for sharing with us today. My thanks to Amal Clooney for joining us. And thank you, thank you so much, Nadia Murad, for having the tenacity and the courage to keep speaking and to change the world. Nadia's book, The Last Girl, you should read that one first, I think. And, but you don't have to read The Last Girl. To read I Choose My Beginning, I just will tell you, this is completely a full story in its own. But if you read The Last Girl, you're going to want to read I Choose My Beginning. Both are available wherever you buy your books. Go well. There is so much more to discover and learn in Nadia's books.

• 1:00:30Oprah Winfrey?

  In The Last Girl, Nadia shares her story of survival and her fight for justice. In her new book, I Choose My Beginning, she takes us inside what it took to rebuild her life and make peace with the past. Scan the QR code there on your screen to get your copies and continue Nadia's story. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's, it's just a quick tap of the subscribe button.

• 1:01:12Oprah Winfrey?

  And that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.