Yazidi girl says she escaped ISIS in Iraq, but was sexually assaulted in Winnipeg

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

She thought she was safe in Manitoba's capital, but last summer, she was sexually assaulted by a local community leader.

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 federal cabinet ministers and MPs, and attended a series of 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 Department arrested Hesso for the third time on Dec. 2.

After Global News first revealed his arrest, many were shocked that the leader of a Canadian organization that helps Yazidi victims of sexual violence was allegedly hunting one of them.

Widely praised for its work, Hesso's group was the first spokesperson for victims of ISIS atrocities. In testimony to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Migration, he described the suffering of the Yazidis.

“Many women and girls who came to Canada were facing a difficult time,” he said. “It's difficult, and it varies from person to person.” He called on the government to “reset vulnerable Yazidi women and girls here in Canada.”

Now, he is now accused not only of molesting one of them, but he is said to have threatened and breached the terms of his bail which required him to have no contact with her.

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

The suspect cannot be named 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 in an interview at her family home in Winnipeg, the alleged victim told her story of war, migration and claims of repeated abuse in her homeland.

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

Ten years ago, the Yazidi ethno-religious minority in northern Iraq faced the worst crime against humanity in recent times.

Declaring themselves the rulers of the Islamic State, gunmen surrounded villages around Sinjar, a Yazidi area, and ordered residents to convert or face death.

Widely regarded as genocide, the attack was part of Islamic State's attempt to eradicate religious diversity from its so-called caliphate.

The terrorist group killed thousands of men, took boys for combat training and kidnapped women and girls to Syria, where they were forced to help ISIS men.

Under ISIS, they face “enslavement, torture, ill-treatment, murder and rape, including sexual slavery,” the United Nations reported in August.

The Winnipeg girl was only 9 years old at the time, but she remembered the gunshots, bodies and blood as she fled on foot with her parents, brothers and sisters.

He said: “We fled to Kurdistan. “And after that, in 2017, we came to Canada.” He said the family was looking for a “safe place” after Iraq.

When they arrived in Winnipeg, the local Yazidis helped them settle. “They helped us find a house and 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 founded in 2017, two months after the federal government announced it would resettle 1,200 Yazidi women, children and their families.

The founding directors were Hesso and two others, state government records show. The registered address of the group is Hesso's residence in Winnipeg.

For the traumatized refugees who arrived in the city, most of whom were women and girls with little knowledge of English, this group played an important role.

“They were instrumental in helping to resettle the Yazidis in Winnipeg,” said Prof. Lori Wilkinson, Canada Research Chair for Migration Futures in the Department of Social Affairs and Criminology at the University of Manitoba.

A co-author of a federal government-contracted study on Yazidi refugees, Wilkinson said the group needs special support because they arrived in Canada so soon after a massacre by ISIS, also known as DAESH.

“They were hostages of DAESH, and they woke up in Canada,” he said.

“Most of the refugees have been traumatized in one way or another, but especially the Yazidi women, but also some of the children, they were brought here at a time when psychologists would call it a terrible level of trauma, it just happened.”

Testifying to members of Parliament in 2017, Hesso said his party works in partnership with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

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

The IRCC said it has not provided any direct funding to Hesso's organization but the group has “participated in consultations and meetings” about services “for these vulnerable people who come to Winnipeg.”

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

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

In 2022, his organization was praised in the Manitoba Legislature in a Ministerial Statement that recognized its “leadership in providing assistance to Yazidi refugees.”

But according to the Manitoba government, Hesso's group was dissolved in 2023, after it failed to file an annual return for two consecutive years.

“As of December 9, 2024, the Yazidi Association of Manitoba Corp. is no longer active in the Corporations Office,” a provincial spokesperson told Global News.

The organization did not respond to emails seeking comment on the matter, and did not respond to questions about Hesso or its funding sources.

The Aurora Family Therapy Centre, a charity in Winnipeg, said in a statement sent to Global News that it has partnered with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba and other groups “to bring enhanced and targeted summer programs to refugee children and youth.”

“We didn't know they were removed from the company register,” said executive director Abdikheir Ahmed. “We will be amending our procedures continuously.

“Last summer was the last year of the project and there are no plans to continue the relationship.”

The Yazidi Association of Winnipeg had been a part of the victim's life since he arrived in Winnipeg, but over the summer he found himself alone with Hesso.

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

“I didn't let him,” he said.

He defended her but she persisted, he said. “He always touched my leg and told me to 'give me your hand,'” he said.

These incidents are said to have happened alone in the canteen of the community center, the door was closed and the lights were turned off.

According to his request, he said he will not tell anyone. But later, it is alleged that he sent her a text message asking for explicit sex, she said.

He told his teachers about these incidents, the school called the police, and the police came to take his videotaped statement.

The same day he was charged, Hesso was fired. The next night, he went to the Mayor's Ball, according to the seating chart and photos on social media.

The City of Winnipeg said the guests either purchased the tickets or they were tickets “purchased by an outside organization.”

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

It is said that Hesso's relative went to his house and tried to persuade him to withdraw his complaint, accusing him of being paid to make these allegations.

Hesso dismissed the allegations that he sent a relative to his home.

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

The latest charges stem from his encounter near the child's home. She was walking with her sister when they heard someone shouting, “We will kill you one day,” she said.

“And I saw him,” he said.

He was driving and looked at her, he added. Another person was also in the car, he said. He said he wasn't sure if it was his voice, but he thought it was.

Wilkinson said it was not uncommon for vulnerable women to become victims of sex crimes.

“In every single community – Canadian society, immigrant communities – there will always be people who take advantage of this situation, knowing very well that what they are doing is destroying people's lives,” he said.

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

The Yazidi Association of Manitoba said Hesso remains in his position, but the Ethnocultural Council of Manitoba removed him from its board, saying it was “unfit” for him to continue.

Hesso is still in custody. But the accused said he was concerned that a Manitoba court might release him on bail a third time.

The Yazidi community had sympathized with him, he said.

“Yes, most of them support me, and follow me and help me,” he said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca