to think they should charge the Syria girls

[adsy]

If they are indeed with terrorists in Syria then when a small chink of sense comes back to them and they want to come home, I hope they will be charged.

Should 16 year olds be allowed to keep their babies if they get pregnant. According to lots of the hand wringers they shouldn't as they are just silly little girls incapable of making any decisions or taking responsibility for themselves let alone another person

Adsy you need to stop the projecting

YOUR act of rebellion may have been getting drunk a lot - lots of teens do different things

YOU may find feeling sympathetic makes your mind a dangerous place ...other people not so much

I was glue locks on fur shops, going to Greenham Common and spraying anti Thatcher graffiti around town aged 14/15

there was cider involved

The girls where using Twitter - I am not sure if many parents of 15 years old have access to their social media accounts - maybe they didn't ergo they didn't know

This event has really upset me.
My own, older, teen is driving me crazy with his behaviour at the moment - and it's not even thst bad , in the scheme of things. I guess it just serves to remind me how little he knows, and how he's not there yet, in terms of being a full adult, possessed of adult rationality.
My child is older than these three. I really doubt they have full cognisance of what they have done. I feel very sad for them, and their families.

nope, given the fact that at sixteen someone is just an innocent child, the baby should be removed for its own welfare, given that sixteen year olds are incapable of making decisions for themselves.

But it's the usual double standards isn't it. At sixteen a girl can have a baby/can legally have sex/in fact can have a termination without her parents' consent. All these things are supported here on the basis that she is not a child.

Yet if a sixteen year old decides to convert to radical islam and run off to a terrorist state to marry a jihadi she is an innocent child who is not responsible for her actions. this is of course much more the case where girls are concerned, having a termination at sixteen is to be applauded because she is taking control of her body. marrying a jihadist is to be pittied because she is obviously a poor innocent girl under the control of men.

I worry about the communities these girls come from. They live in ghettos and often the only people not from their own ethnic group they come into daily contact with are their teachers. We need to ensure people who settle in the UK integrate better by ensuring schools and social housing estates are mixed ethnically and not allowed to develop into ghettos where children are exposed to only point of view.

Some of the 7/7 and Boston bombers were 18 and 19.... Not much more than children themselves

Exactly thecat I work with teens every day - I have 2 pre teens myself - I think it gives you more insight into how these girls where groomed and what they think they are doing - verses what's actually happening

It's scary how vulnerable they are

it's not double standards at all to treat teens with respect and to care about them and recognise their vulnerability and their abilities

there is a reasons teens are targeted by predators

but maybe people live in close communities because if they moved next door to Wannabe and people like her they'd be treated with suspicion and paranoia rather than welcomed into the neighbourhood

If you treat people like that they wont want to integrate - maybe start Mumzy by inviting some of the Muslims you know round for a cuppa

But mumzy that's what their families want, to be segregated as the rest of society is not good enough for them. How will you force people to live in different areas?

there's a vast difference between not wanting to live next door to muslims and not wanting to live next door to the jihad. Plenty of muslims on this thread wouldn't want to live next door to jihadis either.

Not sympathising with jihadi sympathisers has nothing to do with islam - it has everything to do with not wanting to sympathise with terrorists, whoever they may represent.

But of course it's much easier to justify sympathy on the basis of telling those who don't that they are obviously racist/wouldn't want muslims living next door.

I live next door to a Muslim family. They have teens too. just normal lads as far as I can tell, as likely to run off to Syria as my own non Muslim teens I would think.

So to those who say these three are children and should go back to their old lives if they return - I guess you had better hope it's not your family members who get blown up or maimed by one of them if whilst in Syria they are taught how to be an effective terrorist and returned to the UK to kill.

I don't think anyone's saying a sixteen year old's not responsible for their own actions are they?! What most of us seem to be saying is that at that age they're still just kids who are easily swayed and led. So the onus is on society and their schools and families to try and help them not to be mind warped. We have no idea what's going on in their heads. One of the girl's sister was on the news saying she's hoping her little sis has gone to bring back her friend. It might be as innocent and naive as that, but either way we need to understand don't we? How can we move on and stop more going if we don't get why they went. These girls are our girls. They're young British women. They're teens like any other teens. Their poor families must be going through hell.

I was talking to a weegie friend today and we both had always judged the muslim community there well integrated.

The girls in this latest case too look far different to those Muslim girls I knew living in a predominantly Muslim community in a northern town - much more "westernised" for want of a better term. So they seem to me to be not from such a closed community?

These girls didn't just "catch" radicalism. It's not a virus that preys on "vulnerable teens". There has to be a fertile bed for it to take root. And that bed is an undiverse Muslim community.

If radicalism just struck "impressionable teens" we would see lots of "idealistic" "nice" "straight A" English children heading off to Syria to fight for IS. But we don't do we?

These girls - and the others like them - grow up in a community that is insulated from British culture and values. Islam competes for their loyalty and usually wins out. They don't consider themselves British but part of the "Ummah". If their school, mosque and families were British first and Muslim second it would not have crossed their minds to go and fight for ISIS. Just as it wouldn't have crossed their minds to go and fight in the Ukraine.

We have had months now of IS beheading aid workers, burning men alive, crucifying children, raping women, throwing gays from buildings, mass synchronised beheadings of fellow Muslims and Christians - all viewable in glorious Hollywood technicolour. And yet somehow these girls did not get a steer from their families, from their school or from their mosque that this was not acceptable. Instead they seem to have picked up the idea that this was a noble enterprise. So how did this happen? The best we can hope for is that no-one they knew ever talked about these issues and they just simply received no moral guidance whatsoever. The worst doesn't bear thinking about.

I have a muslim friend who goes to the finsbery park Mosq, and who proudly announces that he has been spoken to by Abu Hamza. He says he is an absolute nutter, and that he is incredibly radical but that in between his radical hate speech he talks the biggest load of crap imaginable. Friend is not a radical muslim.

In the same way I know lots of Christians but they are not all gay-hating bible bashing extreme Christians. It is the terrorists who equate what they are doing with islam, not islam which should be equated with terrorism.

Well, someone they knew must have talked about it, because one of their friends went out last December. Maybe the school, parents and police will be better armed now that it's happened twice at the same school. I get the impression that the head is in denial at the moment.

it's the usual double standards isn't it. At sixteen a girl can have a baby/can legally have sex/in fact can have a termination without her parents' consent. All these things are supported here on the basis that she is not a child.

Yet if a sixteen year old decides to convert to radical islam and run off to a terrorist state to marry a jihadi she is an innocent child who is not responsible for her actions. this is of course much more the case where girls are concerned, having a termination at sixteen is to be applauded because she is taking control of her body. marrying a jihadist is to be pittied because she is obviously a poor innocent girl under the control of men.

What are you talking about *WannaBe?

I'd support the right of a 16 year old to have sex, have a baby and keep it because that's legally and morally right.

I'd be disappointed if my 16 year old or younger chose to do any of those things because I think that is far too young. Young people had to grow up a lot quicker a long time ago, but that said, my mother was born in 1923 and 16 was considered a touch too young to be married with babies even then.

I would not force abortion or adoption on my 16 year old because though she is my child, and I would be mourn the doors she'd closed for herself, her body and mind are not mine, and her life could still be happy. It would just be different to mine. Hell, it might even be happier than mine.

I'd probably be pleased if she chose abortion but I would not force that upon her. I expect I'd have many long nights of the soul while I waited on her decision and I'd have to deal with her decision because I am her mother.

I'd also expect support from health, social and education services because she is a child and we are a rich nation, despite what they say.

I certainly wouldn't dream of cutting her off.

Same as if someone ran off to join the IS circus.

they're not jihadis they're just very naughty girls

honestly I couldn't help it

I worry about the communities these girls come from. They live in ghettos

These girls come from Bethnal Green. It really is not the ghetto.

Some of my best friends are aliens.

At least that's what they told me when they abducted me.

There are effective alternatives to the simple "punish them if they try to come back" model. Denmark has taken a different tack - one that seems to me to be both more humane in treating returning kids AND has prevented others from going. www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/12/deradicalise-isis-fighters-jihadists-denmark-syria

One thing that does not seem to have been considered on this thread is that this is some daft rescue mission they might have gone on to bring their friend back. We simply don't know.

The trouble is posters on here are looking at their teenage daughters and thinking 'Oh my god,what if??' imagining how they would feel if their DD had done such a thing.They would be thinking they are just innocent children who have been brainwashed.But that is not rational thought.The different is your daughters wouldn't do it.99.999% of teenage girls wouldn't.They would be appalled by these terrorists
Apart from the so-called Facebook grooming There must be something very wrong with their upbringing for these 15 yo girls to (a) want to go away from their family and (b) to admire such evil evil people.

I spe4ak as the mother of 3 teenagers