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

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

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

Hesu met with federal government ministers and members of parliament, and attended a range of parties. The day after he was accused of sexual assault, he was spotted at the mayor’s party.

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

After Global News first reported his arrest, many were shocked that the leader of a Canadian organization that helps Yazidi victims of sexual violence had assaulted one of their own.

Hiso Group has been widely praised for its work, and was an early advocate for victims of ISIS brutality. in certificate Before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, he described the trauma of the Yazidis.

“Many of the women and girls who arrived in Canada went through difficult times,” 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.”

Now, he is now accused of not only molesting one of them, but then threatening her and violating bail conditions that require 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 due to its failure to file annual reports.

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

But in an interview at her family home in Winnipeg, the alleged victim told her story of war, displacement and allegations that she was abused again in her adopted country.

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

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

After declaring themselves rulers of the Islamic State, the militants besieged the villages surrounding Sinjar, the Yazidi stronghold, and ordered residents to convert to Islam or face death.

The attack, widely recognized as genocide, was part of Islamic State’s attempt to eliminate religious diversity in its so-called caliphate.

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

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

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

“We fled to Kurdistan,” she said. “And then, 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 settle. “They helped us find a home, a school, everything,” she said.

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

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

Provincial government records show the founding directors are Hesu and two others. The group’s registered address is Hisu’s residence in Winnipeg.

For the traumatized refugees arriving in the city, most of whom were women and girls who knew little English, the group played a crucial role.

“They were instrumental in helping resettle the Yazidis in Winnipeg,” said Professor Laurie Wilkinson, Canada Research Chair on the Future 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 distinct support because they arrived in Canada so soon after the genocide perpetrated by ISIS, also known as DAESH.

She added: “They were captives of ISIS, and then they woke up in Canada.”

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

His testimony before representatives in 2017 Hiso said His group was working in partnership with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

He said: “We provide opportunities for social communication, transportation, medical care, and the most important thing is interpretation and integration into Canadian society.”

IRCC said it did not provide any direct funding to HSU, but it “participated in consultation sessions and meetings” about services “for these vulnerable populations arriving in Winnipeg.”

A spokesman for the association said: “We have no other relationship with the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.”

In photos posted on social media, Hiso was seen with Manitoba Premier Wap Kinew, two immigration ministers, Liberal and Conservative MPs, and members of the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP.

In 2022, his association was praised in the Manitoba legislature in a ministerial statement that recognized its “leadership in providing support to Yazidi refugees.”

But according to the Manitoba government, Hesu Group will be dissolved in 2023, after failing to file its annual returns for two consecutive years.

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

The association did not respond to emails requesting comment on the matter, nor did it answer questions about Hisu or its sources of funding.

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

Executive Director Abdul Khair Ahmed said: “We were not aware that they had been removed from the company’s register.” “We will adjust our procedures on a moving forward basis.

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

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

“I was looking at him, and 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 let him,” she said.

She said she repulsed him but he insisted. “He was always touching my leg and saying, ‘Give me your hand,’” she claimed.

The incidents allegedly occurred when they were alone in the canteen of a community facility, with the door locked and the lights turned off.

She allegedly said, at his request, that she would not tell anyone. 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, so the school called the police, and officers arrived to take her videotaped statement.

On the same day he was charged, Hiso was released on his own recognizance. The next night, he attended the mayor’s party, according to the seating chart and photos on his social media.

The City of Winnipeg said guests either purchased tickets or attended with tickets “purchased by an outside organization.”

Twelve days later, Hiso was arrested again, this time on charges of violating a bail condition that required him to have no direct or indirect contact with the alleged victim.

A relative of Hiso allegedly went to her home and tried to persuade her to drop her complaint, accusing her of getting paid to make the allegations.

Hiso denied the allegation that he sent one of his relatives to her 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 bail conditions.

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

“And I saw him,” she said.

She added that he was driving the car and looked at her. She added that another person was also in the car. She couldn’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 — Canadian society, immigrant communities — there will always be some people who take advantage of the situation, knowing full well that what they are doing is ruining someone’s life,” she said.

“The actions of one person should not taint the overall good work done by this organization.”

The Yazidi Association of Manitoba said Hesu remained in his position, but the Ethno-Cultural Council of Manitoba removed him from its board, saying it was “unsuitable” for him to continue.

Hiso remains in detention. But the alleged victim said she was concerned a Manitoba court might grant him bail for a third time.

She said that the Yazidi community was sympathetic to her.

“Yes, most of them support me, and they go behind my back and help me,” she said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca