Nujeen Mustafa (Arabic: نوجين مصطفى Nūjjayn Muṣṭafā; also transliterated Noujain Mustaffa) is a Kurdish Syrian refugee and activist with cerebral palsy.
She was raised in Aleppo, Syria, and gained attention after traveling 3,500 miles (5,600 km) by wheelchair, fleeing conflict in the Syrian Civil War, before arriving and resettling in Germany.
In 2019 she became the first disabled person to brief the United Nations Security Council, and was the recipient of the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch.
[2] She later compared the situation to being under house arrest: For me, it meant not being able to go to school, hang out with friends or go to the cinema ... Having a disability in Syria often means that you are hidden away.
Beginning in 2014, at age 16, Mustafa traveled 3,500 miles (5,600 km) from Syria to Gaziantep in Turkey, and finally Germany as a refuge from the Syrian Civil War.
[5] In February 2019, Mustafa was announced as the winner of the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism, given out by Human Rights Watch, which cited the role her story played in helping to "move policymakers in the European Union" on the issue of the delivery of humanitarian aid to those with disabilities.