Our Mission & Purpose
The Canadian Yazidi Association is a non-profit organization designed to assist Yazidis in need. It was founded shortly after ISIS’s genocidal campaign to eradicate the Yazidi people in August 2014 in Iraq. The Canadian Yazidi Association seeks to implement projects and programs to support members of the Yazidi community and create local and global awareness of the plight of the Yazidis
The Canadian Yazidi Association works with multifaith organizations, governments, businesses and civil society partners to design and support projects that promote education, private sponsorship, resettlement, services for Yazidi survivors and for Yazidi women and children, with a special focus on trauma recovery and community based psychological services, economic empowerment, community reintegration, healthcare and livelihoods. Our programs are community-driven, survivor centric, and work to promote long term healing and successful integration into Canadas social fabric.
Canadian Yazidi Association Board Members
Jamileh Naso
President
Salim Hasan
Vice-President
Dimah Adbulkareem
Secretary
Jalal Naso
Treasurer
Faissal Naso
Board Memember
Ibrahim Ismael
Board Memember
Majid Haji
Board Memember
Who are the Yazidis?
The Yazidi people are an ethnic and religious minority in the Middle East, with their largest population concentrated in Northern Iraq. Yazidis are Kurmanji-speaking and practice a monotheistic religion that reflects a spectrum of teachings and beliefs from various other religions including Gnostic Christianity, Judaism, Sufi Islam, and Zoroastrianism.
Rather than formal ceremonies, their religious practice involves visiting sacred places. Yazidis participate in baptisms and feasts, sing hymns, and recite stories. Some of their stories are about historical and mythical battles fought in protection of the religion. Others, told over the centuries by generations of women, detail methods of resistance to the same threats that Yazidi women face today.
The Yazidi people believe that they descended solely from Adam, that angels guard the world, that reincarnation is possible, and that there is no distinction between heaven and hell. Because these beliefs vary significantly from other religions, the Yazidis have been targeted throughout history and persecuted by Muslim rulers in the region who demanded that they convert to Islam.
Yazidis have been labelled “devil worshipers,” “infidels,” and “non-believers.” These labels have, for centuries, served as the foundation of efforts to destroy Yazidi communities and alienate them from other groups. Over the course of their history, the Yazidis have suffered and survived 74 separate genocidal attacks.
Forced Displacement
More recently, the Yazidis were made vulnerable by forced displacement under Saddam Hussein; the economic meltdown of Iraq under UN sanctions; the breakdown of the state and security after the US-led invasion of 2003; and the political failures that followed. In Iraq there are now around 500,000 Yazidis, primarily from the Sinjar region in Nineveh province in the country’s north. The Yazidis of Syria and Turkey have mostly fled to neighboring countries or to Europe.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as ISIS and by its Arabic language acronym, Daesh) waged a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi people in Iraq on August 3, 2014. In the early hours of August 3, 2014, ISIS launched a coordinated attack across the Sinjar region of Northern Iraq. The attack came from Mosul and Tal Afar in Iraq, and from Al-Shaddadi and the Tel Hamis region in Syria, besieging the population from all four sides. The Kurdish Peshmerga forces mandated to protect the area abandoned bases and checkpoints, leaving the local population unprotected and largely defenseless in the face of ISIS’s advance.
Yazidi Persecution
In the hours and days that followed, approximately 12,000 Yazidis were killed or abducted by ISIS. The perpetrators systematically divided Yazidis into different groups:
Young women and girls, some as young as 9 years of age, were forcibly converted and transferred to and between various holding sites in Iraq and Syria to be used as sabaya (sex slaves) or forced wives by ISIS fighters, a practice that was officially endorsed and regulated by ISIS leadership;
Yazidi boys who had not yet reached puberty were separated from their mothers, brain-washed, radicalized, and trained as child soldiers; and
Older boys and men who refused to convert to Islam, or in some cases even those who agreed to convert under pressure, as well as some of the older women, were immediately executed by shooting or having their throats cut, their bodies often left onsite or dumped in mass graves.
Escape to mount sinjar
ISIS’s attack also caused an estimated 250,000 Yazidis to flee to Mount Sinjar, where they were surrounded by ISIS for days in temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. ISIS prevented any access to food, water or medical care in a deliberate attempt to cause a large number of deaths. Hundreds of Yazidis perished before a coordinated rescue operation involving Yazidi volunteers, the Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG) and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), along with an international coalition, led to the opening of a safe passage from Mount Sinjar to Syria.
ISIS destroyed Yazidi religious sites in the territories it occupied. Yazidi homes and properties were destroyed or looted, severely hindering the prospects of surviving Yazidis returning to their homeland.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (‘Inquiry on Syria’) found that ISIS’s actions against the Yazidis amounted to multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as genocide.