Iraq | Bringing Hope to Women Formerly Held Captive by ISIS

The Yazidis are a people group targeted and massacred by ISIS with an estimate of 12,000- 14,000 who died or were captured, and 71% displaced. Many women and young girls were taken and trafficked as sex slaves for ISIS. Some eventually escaped, but because their ordeal is seen as shameful in their culture, they couldn’t go home to their families. Now many live in camps in Northern Iraq.

Novo’s partner in the Middle East, NEO Leaders, started ministering among women and children in these camps by providing humanitarian aid, trauma counseling, basic literacy, and building relationships. A group of 13 young women rescued from sexual captivity were able to attend a trauma healing workshop in Lebanon, led by Novo staff Alex Galloway. The healing that took place in one week was astounding, and even though they had to be very cautious to talk about faith in Jesus, these women eventually all found the hope of Jesus for themselves.

Now, NEO Leaders has expanded their work into a second Yazidi refugee camp. They are the only NGO allowed in because of their track record of long-term, relational, and impactful work with Yazidi women and children. NEO Leaders has a new community center in this camp where they will do trauma healing sessions for women, an educational program for children, and run a women’s only coffee shop to foster connection and peace for the women. A short-term team from the US, including some Novo staff, were able to visit this camp and build a playground for the children, blessing the work there and burying blessings in the ground around the poles of the play structure.

The Yazidi situation is quite hopeless from the world’s standpoint, and yet Jesus is showing his power to redeem and bring hope in powerful ways.

You can read more about this work among the Yazidis on the Novo blog.