A 19-year-old high school student, she fled to Winnipeg in 2017 to escape the ISIS armed men who broke into northern Iraq and forced women and girls to enter. sexual slavery.
She thought she was safe in the Manitoba capital, and last summer, she was allegedly the victim of a sexual assault by a leader in her own community.
The man accused of repeatedly trying to force her behind closed doors in a dark room, Hadji Hessois the executive director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.
Hesso rubbed shoulders with federal ministers and MPs and attended numerous galas. The day after he was charged with 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 Dec. 2.
After Global News first revealed After his arrests, many were shocked that a leader of a Canadian organization that helps Yazidi victims of sexual violence attacked one of them.
Widely praised for their work, Hesso’s group was an early advocate for victims of ISIS’s cruelty. In testimony before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, he described the trauma of the Yazidis.
“Many women and girls who arrive in Canada are going through a difficult time,” he said. “It’s serious and it varies from person to person.” He urged the government to “resettle vulnerable Yazidi women and girls here in Canada.”
Today, he is now accused not only of having assaulted one of them, but also of having subsequently threatened her and of having violated the conditions of his bail which required him to have no contact with her.
Meanwhile, Global News has learned his non-profit group has continued to operate despite being dissolved by the Manitoba government more than a year ago for failure to file annual reports.
The alleged victim cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban. Hesso’s attorney, Alex Steigerwald, declined to comment. Hesso has not been convicted and denies the allegations.
But during an interview at the family’s Winnipeg home, the alleged victim recounted her story of war, displacement and complaints of revictimization in her adopted country.
“I just want to tell people to be very careful,” she said. “Don’t go out alone and really focus on staying safe.”
Yazidis flee to Erbil, Iraq, after ISIS attacked the towns of Sinjar and Zunmar, August 3, 2014. (AP Photo via AP Video).
Ten years ago, the Yazidi ethno-religious minority in northern Iraq was the victim of one of the worst crimes against humanity in recent years.
After declaring themselves leaders of an Islamic state, gunmen surrounded villages around Sinjar, the Yazidis’ heartland, and ordered residents to convert or face death.
Widely recognized as a genocideThe assault was part of Islamic State’s attempt to eliminate the religious diversity of its so-called caliphate.
The terror group has executed thousands of men, taken boys for combat training and kidnapped women and girls to Syria, where they were forced to serve ISIS men.
Under ISIS, they were subjected to “slavery, torture, inhumane treatment, murder and rape, including sexual slavery,” the United Nations reported in August.
The Winnipeg teen was just 9 years old at the time, but she remembers the gunshots, bodies and blood as she fled on foot with her parents and siblings.
“We ran to Kurdistan,” she said. “And after that, in 2017, we came to Canada.” She said the family wanted a “safe place” after Iraq.
When they arrived in Winnipeg, local Yazidis helped them get settled. “They helped us find a house, a school and everything else,” she said.
The help came from a new non-profit organization: the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.
Yazidi Association of Manitoba
Hadji Hesso, executive director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba, at a rally at the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, 2018.
The Yazidi Association of Manitoba was incorporated in 2017, two months after the federal government. announcement it would resettle 1,200 Yazidi women, children and families.
The founding directors were Hesso and two others, according to provincial government records. The group’s registered address is Hesso’s residence in Winnipeg.
For the traumatized refugees arriving in the city, who were mostly women and girls with little English, the group had a crucial role.
“They were instrumental in the resettlement of Yazidis in Winnipeg,” said Professor Lori Wilkinson, Canada Research Chair in the Future of Migration in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Manitoba. .
Wilkinson, co-author of a federally commissioned study on Yazidi refugees, said the group needed separate support because they arrived in Canada so soon after the genocide by the ISIS, also known as DAESH.
“They were captives of ISIS, then woke up in Canada,” she said.
“Most of the refugees have been traumatized in one way or another, but for the Yazidi women in particular, but also for some of the children, they were brought here at a time that psychologists would describe as acute trauma, it just arrived. »
Testifying before MPs in 2017, Hesso said his group worked in partnership with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
“We provide opportunities for socialization, transportation, medical care, and most important is 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 “participated in consultation sessions and meetings” about services “for this vulnerable population arriving in Winnipeg.” .
“We have no other relationship with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba,” a spokesperson said.
In photos posted to social media, Hesso is seen with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, two immigration ministers, Liberal and Conservative MPs, as well as members of the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP.
In 2022, his association was commended in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in a ministerial statement recognizing its “leadership in supporting Yazidi refugees.”
But according to the Manitoba government, Hesso’s group was disbanded in 2023, after failing to file its annual reports for two years in a row.
“As of December 9, 2024, the Yazidi Association of Manitoba Corp. is not active in the Companies Office register,” a provincial spokesperson told Global News.
The Association did not respond to emails seeking comment on the subject, nor to questions about Hesso or its funding sources.
Aurora Family Therapy Centre, a Winnipeg charity, said in a statement to Global News that it has partnered with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba and other groups “to offer enhanced and targeted summer programs to refugee children and young people.
“We didn’t know they had been removed from the company register,” said executive director Abdikheir Ahmed. “We will modify our procedures as we go.
“Last summer was the final year of the project and there are no plans to continue this relationship.”
Alleged unwanted touching
Iraqi Yazidi women mourn their loved ones during the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide in Sinjar, Iraq, August 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed).
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 looked at him, he looked 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 let him,” she said.
She pushed him away but he persisted, she said. “He would always touch my leg and say ‘give me your hand,'” she said.
The facts allegedly occurred while they were alone in the canteen of a community establishment, with the door closed and the lights off.
When asked, she said she would not tell anyone, she claimed. But later, he allegedly texted her asking for an explicit sexual favor, she said.
She informed her teachers of the alleged incidents, the school called the police and officers arrived to record her videotaped statement.
The same day he was indicted, Hesso was released on recognizance. The next night, he attended the mayor’s ball, according to the seating chart and photos posted on his social media.
The City of Winnipeg said guests purchased tickets or attended using tickets “purchased by an external organization.”
Twelve days later, Hesso was arrested again, this time for allegedly violating a condition of his bail 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 drop her complaint, accusing her of having been paid to make the allegations.
Hesso denied the allegation that he sent a relative to her house.
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, “We will kill you one day,” she said.
“And I saw it,” she said.
He was driving and watching her, she added. Another person was also in the car, she said. She said she couldn’t be sure it was his voice, but she thought it was.
Wilkinson said it was not unusual for vulnerable women to be victims of sex crimes.
“In every community – the Canadian community, the immigrant communities – there will always be people who take advantage of the situation, knowing full well that what they are doing is destroying someone’s life,” she said. declared.
“And the actions of one man should not taint the overall good work this organization does.”
The Yazidi Association of Manitoba said Hesso remained in his position, but the Manitoba Ethnocultural Council removed him from its board, saying it was “not appropriate” for him to continue.
Hesso remains in custody. But the alleged victim said she fears the Manitoba court will not release him on bail a third time.
The Yazidi community showed him sympathy, she said.
“Yes, most of them support me, they go behind my back and help me,” she said.