Nobel laureate and former jihadist captive Nadia Murad called for the protection of women belonging to her Yazidi minority until Islamic State leaders are tried for crimes against the community.

"All the victims need a safe haven until Daesh is brought to the international courts," the 25-year-old Iraqi said at an international conference in Doha, using an Arabic acronym for the jihadist group.

Murad also renewed calls for Iraq and other countries to investigate the fate of members of her Yazidi minority kidnapped by IS.

Murad was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo earlier this month with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege for her work highlighting the plight of Iraq's Yazidis.

Like thousands of other Yazidi women and girls, Murad was abducted by IS in 2014 as the jihadists overran the minority's stronghold of Sinjar in northern Iraq, close to the border with Syria.

They were held captive, tortured, raped and sold as sex slaves by IS.

Attending the Doha Forum, Murad -- the first Iraqi to receive the Nobel prize -- said on Sunday that she dreams of returning home.

"I dream about returning to Sinjar and living a noble life, opening a beauty salon as a way to help Yazidi women," she said.

More than 3,000 Yazidi women and children are still missing, probably still held captive, according to Murad.

IS captured large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled.

The jihadists have since lost most of their territory to offensives by multiple forces in both countries, retreating to desert holdouts.

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Islamic State not defeated, just transforming: experts
Washington (AFP) Dec 14, 2018
Even as the last pockets of resistance in eastern Syria hold their ground, the Islamic State group is shapeshifting into a new, but no less dangerous, underground form, experts warn. Also known as ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the group had long been ready to cede the territory it once held in its self-styled "caliphate," and has already begun the switch to a more clandestine role, closer to its roots. "ISIS anticipated its battlefield defeat and the loss of the caliphate and pre ... read more