Yazidi teen says she escaped ISIS in Iraq, only to be sexually assaulted in Winnipeg

A 19-year-old high school student, she fled to Winnipeg in 2017 to escape ISIS gunmen who swept into northern Iraq and forced women and girls into sexual slavery.

She thought she was safe in Manitoba’s capital, and last summer she was allegedly the victim of sexual assault at the hands of a leader in her own community.

The man accused of repeatedly trying to force himself on her behind closed doors in a dark room, Hadji Hesso, is the executive director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.

Hesso has rubbed shoulders with ministers and parliamentarians of the federal cabinet and has attended various galas. The day after he was accused of sexual assault, he was seen at the mayor’s ball.

“I hope he stays in jail,” the alleged victim told Global News in a series of exclusive interviews after the Winnipeg Police Service arrested Hesso for the third time on December 2.

After Global News first revealed their arrests, many were shocked that a leader of a Canadian organization that helps Yazidi victims of sexual violence had allegedly taken advantage of one of them.

Widely praised for their work, Hesso’s group was an early advocate for victims of ISIS cruelty. In testimony Before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, he described the trauma of the Yazidis.

“Many of the women and girls who have come to Canada have gone through difficult times,” she said. “It’s serious and varies from person to person.” She urged the government to “resettle vulnerable Yazidi women and girls here in Canada.”

Now, he is now accused of not only sexually abusing one of them, but also allegedly threatening her and violating bail conditions that required him to have no contact with her.

Meanwhile, Global News has learned that his non-profit group continued to operate despite being dissolved by the Manitoba government more than a year ago for failing to file annual reports.

The alleged victim cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban. Hesso’s lawyer, Alex Steigerwald, declined to comment. Hesso has not been convicted and denies the allegations.

But in an interview at her family home in Winnipeg, the alleged victim told her story of war, displacement and reports of re-victimization in her adopted country.

“I just want to tell people to be very careful,” he said. “Don’t go out alone and really focus on your safety.”

Ten years ago, the Yazidi ethnoreligious minority in northern Iraq suffered one of the worst crimes against humanity in recent times.

Having declared themselves rulers of an Islamic State, gunmen surrounded villages around Sinjar, the Yazidi heartland, and ordered residents to convert or face death.

Widely recognized as a genocide, the attack was part of the Islamic State’s attempt to eliminate the religious diversity of its so-called caliphate.

The terrorist group executed thousands of men, took children to train as fighters, and kidnapped women and girls in Syria, where they were forced to serve ISIS men.

Under ISIS, they were subjected to “slavery, torture, inhuman treatment, murder and rape, including through sexual slavery,” the United Nations reported in August.

The Winnipeg teenager was only nine years old at the time, but she remembered the gunshots, the bodies and the blood as she fled on foot with her parents, brothers and sisters.

“We ran to Kurdistan,” he said. “And after that, in 2017, we came to Canada.” He said the family wanted a “safe place” after Iraq.

When they arrived in Winnipeg, local Yazidis helped them settle. “They helped us find a house, a school and everything,” he said.

Help came from a newly formed non-profit organization: the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.

The Yazidi Association of Manitoba was formed in 2017, two months after the federal government announced would resettle 1,200 Yazidi women, children and families.

The founding directors were Hesso and two others, provincial government records show. The group’s registered address is Hesso’s residence in Winnipeg.

For the traumatized refugees who came to the city, mostly women and girls with little knowledge of English, the group played a crucial role.

“They were instrumental in helping to resettle Yazidis in Winnipeg,” said Professor Lori Wilkinson, Canadian Research Chair in Futures of Migration in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Manitoba.

Wilkinson, co-author of a federally contracted study on Yazidi refugees, said the group needed special support because they arrived in Canada so soon after the genocide committed by ISIS, also known as DAESH.

“They were captives of Daesh and then they woke up in Canada,” he said.

“Most of the refugees have been traumatized in some way, but the Yazidi women in particular, but also some of the children, were brought here at a time that psychologists would call an acute level of trauma, it just happened.”

Testifying before parliamentarians in 2017, hessus said his group was working in partnership with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“We provide opportunities for socialization, transportation, medical care and most importantly interpretation and integration into Canadian society,” he said.

IRCC said it did not provide any direct funding to Hesso’s organization, but that the group “engaged in consultation sessions and meetings” about services “for this vulnerable population coming to Winnipeg.”

“We have no other relationship with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba,” a spokesperson said.

In photos on social media, Hesso is seen with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, two immigration ministers, Liberal and Conservative MPs and members of the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP.

In 2022, their association was praised in the Manitoba legislature in a Ministerial Statement recognizing their “leadership in providing support to Yazidi refugees.”

But according to the Manitoba government, Hesso’s group dissolved in 2023, after failing to file annual returns for two consecutive years.

“As of December 9, 2024, the Yazidi Association of Manitoba Corp. is not active on the Companies Office registry,” a provincial spokesperson told Global News.

The Association did not respond to emails seeking comment on the matter, nor did it respond to questions about Hesso or its funding sources.

Aurora Family Therapy Center, a Winnipeg charity, said in a statement to Global News that it had partnered with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba and other groups “to offer enhanced, targeted summer programming for refugee children and youth.”

“We didn’t know they had been removed from the business register,” said chief executive Abdikheir Ahmed. “We will modify our procedures in the future.

“Last summer was the last year of the project and there are no plans for an ongoing relationship.”

The Yazidi Association of Winnipeg had been a part of the alleged victim’s life since she arrived in Winnipeg, but over the summer she found herself alone with Hesso.

“I was looking at him, he was looking at me and I knew he was going to do something,” she said. “He was trying to touch me, touch my face.”

“I didn’t leave him,” he said.

She rejected him, but he persisted, she said. “He was always touching my leg and telling me ‘give me your hand,’” she alleged.

The events allegedly occurred when they were alone in the dining room of a community establishment, with the door closed and the lights off.

At his request, she said she would not tell anyone, he alleged. But later, he allegedly sent her a text message asking for an explicit sexual favor, she said.

She told her teachers about the alleged incidents, the school called the police, and officers arrived to take her videotaped statement.

The same day he was charged, Hesso was released on bail. The next night, he attended the mayor’s ball, according to the seating chart and photos on his social media.

The City of Winnipeg said guests purchased tickets or attended through tickets “purchased by a third-party organization.”

Twelve days later, Hesso was arrested again, this time for allegedly violating a bail condition requiring him to have no direct or indirect contact with the alleged victim.

A relative of Hesso allegedly went to her home and tried to persuade her to withdraw her complaint, accusing her of being paid to make the accusations.

Hesso has denied the allegation that he sent a relative to his home.

He was released on bail on November 28, but police arrested him again on December 2 for allegedly threatening the alleged victim and failing to comply with his bail conditions.

The latest charges stem from an alleged encounter near the teen’s home. She and her sister were walking when they heard someone shout, “One day we will kill you,” she said.

“And I saw it,” he said.

He was driving and looked at her, she added. Another individual was also in the car, he said. She said she can’t be sure it was his voice, but she thought it was.

Wilkinson said it was not unusual for vulnerable women to become victims of sexual crimes.

“In every community – the Canadian community, immigrant communities – there will always be some people who take advantage of the situation, knowing full well that what they are doing is destroying someone’s life,” he said.

“And the actions of one person should not tarnish the overall good work this organization has done.”

The Manitoba Yazidi Association said Hesso remained in his position, but the Manitoba Ethnocultural Council removed him from its board of directors, saying it was “not appropriate” for him to continue.

Hesso remains in custody. But the alleged victim said he was concerned the Manitoba court could release him on bail for a third time.

The Yazidi community had been sympathetic to her, she said.

“Yes, most of them support me, they stand behind me and help me,” he said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca