[5] After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.

Murad is the founder of Nadia's Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to "helping women and children victimized by genocide, mass atrocities, and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their lives and communities".

[6] In 2018, she and Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

[18] Murad was taken in by a neighboring family, who were able to smuggle her out of the Islamic State controlled area, allowing her to make her way to a refugee camp in Duhok, Kurdistan Region.

[18] In February 2015, she gave her first testimony – under the alias of "Basima" – to reporters of the Belgian daily newspaper La Libre Belgique while she was staying in the Rwanga camp, living in a converted shipping container.

As part of her role as an ambassador, Murad participates in global and local advocacy initiatives to bring awareness of human trafficking and refugees.

[25] In September 2016, Attorney Amal Clooney spoke before the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to discuss the decision that she had made in June 2016[26] to represent Murad as a client in legal action against ISIL commanders.

[24][25][27] Clooney characterized the genocide, rape, and trafficking by ISIL as a "bureaucracy of evil on an industrial scale", describing it as a slave market existing online, on Facebook and in the Mideast that is still active today.

Along Nadia's Initiative, Murad worked with the Mine's Advisory Group (MAG) to demine more than 2.6 million square meters of land in Sinjar, Iraq.

Murad urged the government of the Iraqi Kurdistan region to play its role in rebuilding Yazidi areas in Sinjar District and returning the refugees back home.

[31][32] In 2019, Murad addressed the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom[33] where she spoke about her story and the ongoing challenges faced by Yazidis nearly five years after the 3 August 2014 attacks.

[36] As part of the delegation, on 17 July 2019, Murad met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office with whom she shared her personal story of having lost her family members, including her mother and six brothers, and pleaded with him to do something.

The Global Survivors Fund (GSF) builds on the advocacy efforts of the Office of the United Nations' Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC).

[41][42] The book has been released in 44 languages including French (Pour que je sois la dernière), German (Ich bin eure Stimme: Das Mädchen, das dem Islamischen Staat entkam und gegen Gewalt und Versklavung kämpft), Arabic (الفتاة الاخيرة: قصتي مع الأسر ومعركتي ضد تنظيم داعش), Italian (L'ultima ragazza), and Spanish (Yo seré la última: Historia de mi cautiverio y mi lucha contra el Estado Islámico).

In 2018, Murad was co-winner (with Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist) of the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for the efforts of both people to end sexual violence as a weapon of war.

The press release from the prize committee cited her refusal to remain 'silent and ashamed', and spoke of her courage in highlighting her own ordeal and that of other victims.