Ameena Saeed Hasan

Ameena Saeed Hasan is a Yezidi Kurd, a minority group targeted by the extremist group ISIL. She has helped secure the release of over 100 captives.

Ms. Hasan, previously a member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, is a Yezidi Kurd. The Yezidi community is a religious minority that is primarily located in Northern Iraq. As the extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), often referred to as ISIS, has expanded its control over the northern part of Iraq and Southeastern Syria they have targeted the Yezidi minority. There are reports of ISIL forcing migration, executing those who refuse, and taking girls and women as sex slaves. Reports include details of systematic rape and sexual slavery, and various ISIL documents and videos confirm the accounts.

Ms. Hasan has courageously spoken about the human rights abuses that are being perpetrated upon the Yezidi people. Her advocacy has been encouraging to other members of the Yezidi community. She worked with others to try and create a registry of captives and their locations. The local government has sponsored a team of local activists who have worked on freeing captives. Ms. Hasan, as a member of that team, has helped to free over 100 people from ISIL captivity since the summer of 2014. 

Ms. Hasan traveled to the US in the spring of 2015 to participate in and speak at the White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism. In 2015, she was named as a Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery by the US Department of State.