To think everyone saying Shamima Begum should rot in Syria have completely overlooked the fact that she is pregnant

[StepAwayFromGoogle]

Just that really. She did a terrible thing going to Syria to marry an ISIS fighter. But she was only 15 and probably incredibly naive. She has already lost two children, one as a complication of malnutrition. And the child she is pregnant with has done nothing wrong. Surely we shouldn't leave him or her there to die too?

I’d have thought the Syrian (authorities) would have arrested her by now?

You don't think that they have more important things to worry about? There are thousands of people who may or may not have been involved in IS. We're interested in this one because young and British. She's just another case to the Syrian authorities.

And one might also say "What Syrian authorities?" It's hardly a stable country with a clear rule of law, is it?

Committing crimes abroad is for that country to deal with, surely? And Syria hardly has a stable legal setup.

Sounds like you think it doesn't matter if she did really naughty things somewhere foreign where there were no British people to be killed.

Sounds like you think it doesn't matter if she did really naughty things somewhere foreign where there were no British people to be killed.

What? How on earth do you deduce that?
My point is that it's all very well for people to say that she must be prosecuted by the UK authorities once she gets back here (which WILL happen, I have no doubt), but my question is whether it's even possible on a legal basis. Don't try and accuse me of not caring about foreigners.

People need to stop harping on about how she was groomed. She wasn’t. She knew what she was doing, and even if she didn’t know that then she had four years to find out, and still she has no regrets.

She is no longer a fifteen year old - she is an adult.

And how far do we take that grooming assumption. How many women for instance practice FGM on their children because of cultural norms where they have been brought up to know that this is the done thing? Do we say “oh, they have been groomed into believing this is right so we should go easy on them?” No we call them out for the barbaric individuals they are. And yet what they do is no less as a result of grooming than joining a terrorist cult and being gleeful at the beheading of innocent women and children. They all deserve the same level of contempt.

Or does the sympathy only extend to the non brown ones? oh do grow up. It’s a weak argument when all you have to say is “is it because she’s brown.” I couldn’t give a shite what colour she is. So being brown and pregnant should somehow earn you better treatment now should it? Or if it doesn’t then we are the ones at fault? I don’t think so.

Don't try and accuse me of not caring about foreigners.

Apologies. Sometimes I get the wrong end of the stick.

Let her rot there.

Do we say “oh, they have been groomed into believing this is right so we should go easy on them?”

Yes. Which is why FGM is effectively legal in the UK: for all the evidence that there are thousands of girls who have been mutilated, there has been one successful prosecution. The basic policy of social services is to ignore it, rather than prosecute the parents.

A woman on the panel on Victoria Derbyshire this morning suggested her attitude to torture might be down to PND or depression WOW

Repatriation is a very difficult process - we've only just last month had reports that the Home Office is finally going to remove the fees to girls who are taken abroad for forced marriages as one of the many barriers those girls have in getting home.

As said by Shiraz Maher in the twitter thread linked upthread, most of the Western governments are pretty much washing their hands on this as much as possible. It'll likely take quite a bit than the already difficulty of getting to a British embassy. I haven't seen the repatriation paperwork and someone else may know better, but all the paperwork I've done and seen from the Home Office requires a lot of evidence, paperwork and giving consent for background checks. I think, legally, the UK could deny her return without much difficulty just from the unlikelihood of her having the needed paperwork or ability to pay fees before getting to the obvious background check issues.

I do think there does need to be a discussion by the relevant governments on what to do with the those that have been and hopefully will be captured and more importantly, the children stuck with them. Let them rot only works if it can enabled for them to be convicted and held, hopefully away from other prisoners and other refugees. I agree with a previous poster that it does make me uncomfortable that it sounds like she's in a refugee camp with those that have nothing to do with daesh other than trying to flee from them.

Any word of the other girls? Two of them I think...In the interview I'm sure she said that she still believed in the kalifate but that the dream had somehow got soured...All the girls were very active on social media in favour of that dream and at 15 they made a very grown up and conscious decision to leave the uk and take up the IS mantel. The abuse this girl has suffered is terrible and I'm sure she'll be scarred for life but I'm not sure she cares. She wants to come back because she knows that there's a better chance of her child surviving here. That's the harsh truth..She cannot be stateless, you can thank The Times for actively seeking her out and setting this shit show off.

PotteryGirl apparently one of them is dead but don’t know about the other one or whether that’s even true

I don't know about anyone else but my children don't have access to their passports. If the parents were at all worried they should have made sure she couldn't get hold of it.

I would also add that a child's passport is only valid for 5 years. If she applied for one at 15, her parents would have had to sign etc. Given her age there is a high chance her passport has expired or has very little time left. If she doesn't have one what a great opportunity to refuse her another.

I am with many others, I don't think she should be let back into the UK.

“People who work with groomed teenagers recognise 'complex victimisation', where victims go on to do bad things. Shamima Begum was a child targeted by ISIS supporters, her absence of regret is chilling but may be open to change. We don't know enough on the basis of 1 interview.” Joan Smith

I don't know about anyone else but my children don't have access to their passports

In the saintly, not extremist, not dishonest at all, families these girls came from, they all had access not only to their passports but to enough money (and means of payment) to buy short-notice medium-haul international plane tickets. How convenient.

I've just read up on Tareena Shakil, who has been jailed in the UK for joining IS when she fled to Syria with her small son, in 2014.

She managed to escape from wherever she was living/being held and paid a taxi driver to take her to the Turkish border, where she says she ran across a field to get across.

She was convicted of joining IS and was jailed for 6 years, (and released on licence after about 2 and a half), so that must be a crime for which Shamima Begum could also be charged with.

She chose to go. End of. She has no remorse. She's one I'd happily like to tell to fuck off.

The think is OhDear I think a lot of people don't want see any money spent on this woman. She will cost an absolute fortune to 'look after', even in prison. All this talk about rehabilitation makes me very angry. There are thousands upon thousands of people in this country who need mental health resources, there are thousands of old people needing support and what do the do gooders want money spent on, this woman. It really makes my blood boil.

I've also found the answers to my other questions. The camp she is in is only 8 miles from the Iraq border, but it's barren desert. The official crossing is 60 miles away but there are no public buses. If she could afford a taxi, she still wouldn't be able to cross if she hasn't got her passport. The Turkish border is also 60 miles away, but they're apparently not letting through members of the Caliphate.

So she would need someone there who would help her. Interesting to see if anyone steps forward.

There was a chap on the news this morning saying they could actually strip her of U.K. citizenship if she has dual citizenship. The Home Office could also just cancel her passport apparently

Yeah, I highly doubt she has another nationality. The HM would have done that by now. She is the UK’s responsibility whether the general public like it or not.

I absolutely agree with you, cupoftea. I'm just trying to see how likely it is that she will be able to push through with the plan to force us to take her back.

HM = Home Office**

But I am willing to bet my mortgage that she will be back in the UK within weeks.

The camp she is in is only 8 miles from the Iraq border, but it's barren desert.

And it appears that Iraq has sentenced many of the Turkish former IS women who arrive in Iraq to death, now commuted to life imprisonment. It's repatriating children, but not the adults.

www.middleeasteye.net/news/hundreds-children-members-jailed-iraq-set-return-turkey

There are currently estimated to be at least 328 Turkish women in Iraqi prisons. Almost 250 of them were initially sentenced to death, but following recent appeal processes some of their sentences were reduced to life imprisonment.

Reflect the Syrian authorities do arrest and detain terrorists. 2 American men and 1 Irish man were arrested in January of this year. This woman has been in the news and they know where she is, it’s quite possible that she will be detained and investigated.

UK citizens now living in a country
with which the UK has no healthcare
agreement are entitled to free
medical treatment in the Accident &
Emergency department of an NHS
hospital. Any treatment provided in
any other part of a hospital will be
charged

so she will have to pay to have the baby here is she comes home