Adiba guides members of OFWI’s Iraq chapter, coordinating relief efforts supporting Yazidis in a refugee camp.
ISIS Genocide Survivor Returns to Iraq to Support Yazidi Community
We wanted to share a heartwarming story with you. Before we do, we want to provide context for those who may not have followed the plight of Yazidis at the hands of ISIS closely.
For those unfamiliar, in the summer of 2014, ISIS stormed Mount Sinjar and began a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi people in their ancestral homeland located in Northern Iraq. For the past seven years One Free World International has been there for the Yazidi people. It's been a struggle that OFWI supporters have made possible, overcoming tremendous challenges.
The death and destruction ISIS inflicted was savage. The enslavement of Yazidi women and young girls was inhumane. The indiscriminate murder of men and older Yazidis was callous. For a harrowing overview, revisit this National Post feature written by veteran reporter Adrian Humphreys: When ISIL came to town: Yazidis tell of child murders and 'meat markets' for sex slaves.
Working with Kurdish tribes in Iraq and Syria, and with the support of your donations and spreading the word to build awareness, OFWI has helped rescued 648 women, girls and their children from ISIS sex slavery and the human smuggling networks that persisted after the defeat of ISIS.
Our last rescue mission over the 2020 Christmas holidays saved six people from a life of slavery and reunited them with surviving family members or community members in refugee camps populated by Yazidis who survived the genocide.
One of the families OFWI has worked closely with was able to resettle to Canada as refugees. Adiba, her two sisters, and nieces and nephews resettled in Richmond Hill. CTV National News did a feature report on Adiba and her family: Raped, beaten and tortured: Former ISIS sex slave on her journey to new life in Canada
In the winter of 2016, after three months as servant and sex slave to an ISIS fighter named Amin, she caught a break.
It was just after lunchtime and Adiba was cleaning while her captor and his family were in another room. She seized on the chance to escape, despite the risk.
“I didn’t care if I got caught. I didn’t care if I lived or if I died,” she recounted.
An hour later, she ran into a local man who was standing outside his home, and begged him for help.
Abu Muhammed, a married family man, agreed to help Adiba. Instead, he took her to an empty house, where he raped her over the course of about a month.
And then he offered her a deal: he would sell her back to her father for US$15,000.
Adiba arranged a phone call between her captor and her father, who managed to raise the money with the help of family, friends and neighbours.
The mental anguish and scars have been severe. With the support of family, OFWI, and new community in Richmond Hill over the past five years, Adiba and her family’s condition continues to improve. Her niece Dilveen, the main subject of this CBC Short Docs, continues to grow while attending high school in Richmond Hill, Canada.
While some of her family were fortunate to join her Canada, many relatives including her parents remained in Iraq. For five years she has received daily updates. Sometimes it has been jubilation, learning of friends or neighbours who survived and found their way to a refugee camp. Other times, sorrow, news of a death, recent or confirmed victims of the ISIS genocide.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Iraq and refugee camps the same as western countries. The difference being they do not have the health system capacity to test, track and treat patients as we do in Canada or the United States. Moved by this struggle, Adiba felt compelled to return to support her community and we are proud to share she has done just that.
Adiba has temporally returned to Iraq. For the past three months she has led an OFWI chapter providing public health best-practices education, PPE, and other humanitarian relief resources to support Yazidis and other religious minorities in refugee camps of Northern Iraq.
We are so proud of Adiba’s courage and drive to support her homeland community in Northern Iraq. It is a legacy OFWI supporters can be proud, not only helping to save lives in a crisis, but investing in recovery so people can help a community regain its footing and thrive once again in the future.
Thank you to all the One Free World International donors and supporters who have been there to make OFWI’s work possible. Thank you to the journalists and media who have covered the plight of Yazidis to bring attention their struggles to help build awareness and mobilize resources so they can rebuild.
In a world bombarded by threats and negative news these days, we hope this story gives you hope and reminds you of what is possible if we come together to address challenges together.