SOME Nobel Peace Prize awards have been, to say the least, controversial. Donald Trump even imagined he might be in with a chance.

However, the decision to award this year’s prize to Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege must be applauded.

Mukwege founded the Panzi Hospital in the “Democratic” Republic of Congo in 1999.

The hospital has since treated some 85,000 rape victims for the dreadful physical and psychological trauma they have suffered. He has spoken out against the scourge of rape and mutilation used as a weapon of war to terrorise and subjugate civilian populations, and has narrowly escaped assassination as a result.

Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman sold into sexual slavery by Daesh (or ISIS) and repeatedly raped and sold on, has shown extraordinary courage in escaping from her captors, exposing the hateful, sadistic debauchery of Daesh’s slave markets, and campaigning for support for other victims and for the preservation of evidence so that the perpetrators may eventually be brought to justice.

Violence against women, and the misogyny which underpins it, is endemic across the globe. Thank goodness the Nobel prize didn’t go to Donald Trump, who has managed to become US president despite bragging about his own ability to sexually assault women with impunity.

Pete Winstanley, Durham