The 19-year-old high school student fled to Winnipeg in 2017 to escape ISIS militants who invaded northern Iraq and forced women and girls inside sexual slavery.

Thinking she was safe in Manitoba's capital, she was allegedly sexually assaulted by a leader in her own community last summer.

A man accused of repeatedly trying to force himself on her behind a closed door in a darkened room, Hadji Hessais the executive director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.

Hesso rubbed shoulders with federal government ministers and MPs and attended a number of gala dinners. The day after he was accused of sexual assault, he was spotted at the mayor's ball.

"I hope he stays in jail," the alleged victim told Global News in a series of exclusive interviews after Winnipeg police arrested Hesso for the third time on Dec. 2.

First after Global News exposed his arrest, many were shocked that the leader of a Canadian organization that helps Yazidi victims of sexual violence allegedly preyed on one of them.

Widely praised for its work, Hess's group was an early advocate for victims of ISIS atrocities. IN testimony He described the trauma of the Yazidis to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

"Many women and girls who have come to Canada have gone through a difficult time," he said. “It's serious and it varies from person to person. He called on the government to "reset vulnerable Yazidi women and girls here in Canada."

He is now accused not only of harassing one of them, but also of allegedly threatening her and breaching bail conditions that required him to have no contact with her.

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

The alleged victim cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban. Hess' attorney, Alex Steigerwald, declined to comment. Hesso has not been convicted and denies the charges.

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

"I just want to tell people to be really careful," she said. "Don't go out alone and really focus on your safety."

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

After declaring themselves rulers of Islamic State, the militants surrounded villages around Sinjar, the Yazidi heartland, and ordered residents to convert or face death.

Widely recognized as a genocidethe attack was part of Islamic State's attempt to erase religious diversity from its so-called caliphate.

The terror group has executed thousands of men, taken boys to be trained 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 said in August.

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

"We fled to Kurdistan," she said. “And then we came to Canada in 2017. 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 house and a school and everything," she 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 he announced would resettle 1,200 Yazidi women, children and their 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 arriving in the city, who were mostly women and girls with little knowledge of English, the group played a vital role.

"They were instrumental in the resettlement of the Yazidis in Winnipeg," said Professor Lori Wilkinson, chair of Canada's Future of Migration Research at the University of Manitoba's Department of Sociology and Criminology.

Wilkinson, who co-authored a federal government-contracted study on Yazidi refugees, said the group needs significant support because it arrived in Canada so soon after the genocide by ISIS, also known as DAESH.

"They were prisoners of DAESH and then they woke up in Canada," she said.

"Most of the refugees have been traumatized in some way, but especially the Yazidi women, but also some of the children, they were brought here at what psychologists would call acute trauma, it just happened."

Testify to MPs in 2017, Hesso said his group worked with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

"We provide social opportunities, 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, but that the group "participated in consultations and meetings" about services "for this vulnerable population coming to Winnipeg."

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

Photos on social media show Hesso with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, two immigration ministers, Liberal and Conservative MPs and members of the Winnipeg police and RCMP.

In 2022, his association was honored in the Manitoba legislature in a ministerial statement that recognized his "leadership in providing support to Yazidi refugees".

But according to the Manitoba government, Hess' group was 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 in the Companies Office," 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 sources of funding.

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 "provide better and targeted summer programs for refugee children and youth."

"We didn't know they had been deregistered," said executive director Abdikheir Ahmed. "We will continuously adjust our procedures.

"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 alleged victim's life since she arrived in Winnipeg, but she found herself alone with Hess over the summer.

"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," she said.

She rebuffed him, but he persisted, she said. "He was always touching my leg and saying 'give me your hand'," she claimed.

The incidents are said to have taken place when they were alone in the dining room of the community facility with the door closed and the lights off.

At his request, she said she wouldn't tell anyone, she claimed. But he later allegedly texted her 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 videotape her statement.

Hesso was released on bond the same day he was charged. The following night, according to the seating chart and photos on his social networks, he attended the mayor's ball.

The City of Winnipeg said guests either purchased tickets or attended through tickets "purchased by an outside organization."

Twelve days later, Hesso was arrested again, this time for allegedly violating a bail condition that required him not to have direct or indirect contact with the alleged victim.

A relative of Hesso allegedly went to her home and tried to convince her to drop her complaint, accusing her of being paid to press charges.

Hesso denied allegations that he sent a relative 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 and her sister were walking when they heard someone call, "One day we're going to kill you," she said.

"And I saw him," she said.

He was driving and looking at her, she added. There was another person 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 any community — the Canadian community, the immigrant community — there are always going to be some people who take advantage of situations and know full well that what they're doing is ruining someone's life," she said.

"And the actions of one person should not mar the overall good work that this organization has done."

The Yazidi Association of Manitoba said Hesso remained in his position, but the Ethnocultural Council of Manitoba removed him from its board, saying he was "not fit" to continue.

Hesso remains in custody. However, the alleged victim said he fears a Manitoba court could release him on bail a third time.

According to her, the Yezidi community sympathized with her.

"Yes, most of them support me and are behind me and helping me," she said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca