MESOP REPORT BY JUDIT NEURINK – Yazidi Kurds doubt ‘Jewish Schindler’ Steve Maman bought their women’s freedom

ERBIL-Hewler, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— A group of 20 prominent Yazidis have demanded proof from Canadian Jewish businessman Steve Maman of his claims that he has bought the freedom of 128 Yazidi women and children from the Islamist terror group ISIS. Amongst the signatories are the Yazidis’ religious leader, the Baba Sheikh, and Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi member of the Iraqi Parliament. Maman has recently been branded the “Jewish Schindler” after his organization, The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children in Iraq (CYCI) claimed on its website to have “singlehandedly helped save over 120 Yazidi and Christian women and children from ISIS-controlled territories in Iraq.”

The businessman says he works with local volunteers to locate the women, then pay their “owners” in territory controlled by ISIS in parts of Iraq and Syria, and get them out. Around 3,000 women and children are believed to still be with ISIS.“Not one Yazidi woman has found freedom because of Steve Maman,” said the spokesman of the Baba Sheikh, his brother Hadi Baba Sheikh. “He has Yazidi people who work with him, just for the money.”

“About 80 percent of the women I know for sure, that this Steven Maman has not helped them. I do know only of families, who lent money from friends and relatives. Afterwards the special government office in Duhok usually pays them back part. I have not heard from any of them that they were helped by a Jew, or a Christian, or the church, or whatever,” he said.Hadi Baba Sheikh repeated an argument also mentioned in the letter, that the amount said to be spent and the number of women said to have been released through the work of CYCI do not add up.

“Maman wrote that for 80,000 euro he had bought the freedom of 120 women. But it does not figure with the current prices. One woman costs $10,000 to $30,000. Children are less, perhaps $5,000. Even if he had just paid a mere $5,000 for every one of them, the total would still be much higher, at $600,000,” he continued.Presently, a number of local volunteers are active in rescue missions. Hadi Baba Sheikh said that he himself recently paid $60,000 for two women. “The money went to Syria. The women are not freed yet but I am not worried. The rescuers have spoken to them and they will be brought here soon,” he said.

The letter calls on Maman to provide “evidence regarding their alleged rescue activities, including the contact information of the families/individuals he claims to have rescued, to the appropriate authorities: members of the Yazidi Supreme Religious Council and the key Yazidi representatives in the Kurdish or Iraqi Parliaments.” Hadi Baba Sheikh said that the group will give Maman limited time to respond, “otherwise we will put a claim against him with the Canadian authorities.”Maman’s webpage for collecting donations with GoFundMe has since early July collected more than $580,000. The Yazidi signatories asked him to cease taking donations until he proves what he has done, and recently the page has been closed. One of the Yazidi rescuers working with CYCI is Abu Shujaa. A Yazidi family living in a compound near the Kurdish town of Sharya that was able to buy back two of their young women from ISIS in the past two months said it worked with him. Hakim Osman, a family member of the victims, said he collected for each $30,000 from friends and family members, but received nothing from Maman.

“Nobody has paid us back. We went from office to office, but we still have to find a way to pay back this huge debt. We are just refugees,” he said.The letter also mentions fear that money might have ended up with ISIS, or IS as the group is also called. “Steve Maman has implied or revealed (…) that he has direct negotiations with IS. We are concerned that he might be engaging in an enterprise that has the net effect of providing funding to jihadists, without any oversight.”

Kurdish journalist and activist Khidher Domle, who is one of the Yazidis initiating the letter, said he wants to see donations really help people being liberated. “We are in this big tragedy, and now someone shows himself as a hero over the backs of our people.”CYCI has reacted on its Facebook page, saying that “Steve Maman used his personal finances to rescue women and children in the beginning, approximately eight months ago”.He “also reached out to fellow business contacts for donations. Together they privately liberated approximately 100 women and children with Steve’s contacts on the ground in Iraq. At this time, CYCI was not formed.”As to the request for proof, CYCI said it is protecting freed women from exposure. “We also protect them from being exploited by others who would like to take advantage of their hardship. If your daughter was raped, would you want her information and pictures published?” it wrote. Yet it promised to respond to the Yazidi leaders, “and send them our updated proof of work.”