Is Shamima Begum a victim or a criminal?

[ShamimaBegu]

Just listened to the podcasts about Shamima Begum. How can Shamima Begum not be viewed as a victim of grooming and sex trafficking? How on earth would a 15 year old got to Syria without adults making it happen?
She was married off and became pregnant on multiple occasions. She surely is as much a victim as a criminal?

She can be both a victim and a risk to the UK. Which she's been assessed to be.

I wouldn't trust her. She has a constant smirk on her face. The people that say she is victim (maybe she is to a point) would likely change their tune
If she was to blow up their family. We can't take that chance. Keeping her out sends a message to others that are thinking of doing the same.

Both, trafficked victim, criminal in that she supported terrorism!

It became a well known fact that white girls in Manchester were being groomed. Should their parents have been aware? Or are you victim blaming and racist?

Maybe she Is to a point?

Recruited at 15 on promise of all kinds of shit, engineered by governments no less, held by a violent and dangerous groups of dissidents, forced to marry and bear multiple children, watching each of her children die, the last one dying while begging our government for help?

Absolutely shocking that anyone is seeing a 'smirk' on her face, she's in a place where it's so dangerous for her to even be contacting the media to say she wants to come home.

Absolutely horrendous that we as a country have done that to her.

I’ve watched the documentary, listened to all the I’m Not A Monster podcasts and have done some of my own reading.

I don’t think it’s black and white at all and on balance believe she is a victim of many things. Situation with her mum dying, dad remarries, isolated socially, no worldly experience of anything, wants to do something to belong, gets radicalised by a friend and ends up there where it’s too late and goes from bad to worse.

Seeing strong opinions that are only based on media headlines makes me annoyed. It’s so contradictory - people are suspicious of the media on so many things but are willing to believe everything they write about this case. Journalists waiting outside the delivery room?! Journalists live recording her reaction to having her citizenship revoked and determining guilt by her reaction?! The media is not a court of law.

In the recent review the judge themselves said people could look at the evidence and it would be reasonable to determine she had indeed been trafficked (paraphrasing) but the UK Government was within its right to take away citizenship because that is at the discretion of the Home Secretary (and could be a political play as much as anything).

It’s incredibly naive of the UK government to think there isn’t huge radicalisation happening with children in those camps. That alone poses a risk as they are the next generation of ISIS fighters who remember growing up in a camp - what do you think that does to a person.

She is both. In fact I would argue that a huge majority of criminals have started off as victims and the impact of this lasts a long time and takes a while to unpick. The same could be said for many other criminals in youth offending institutes and prisons here. It's a fine line between helping people to turn their lives around after negative experiences and punishing the outcome of the behaviour that is often a result of those negative experiences. I don't think it is a one size fits all.

I remember being 15. Peer pressure is huge and can be awful. I was lured into dangerous situations because I wanted to be popular, I did and said things I totally disagree with now because my friends did and said them. And that was without being love bombed, groomed and bombarded with texts and videos.

There is no doubt that she was groomed. If you read the posts of adults whose kids have been groomed into county lines it's a similar thing.

Once she was there, she probably had to act a certain way to survive. If she has harmed another human being then she is wrong. However, in the first place she was a victim.

I agree with this. If your family has always hit or abused you then you hit someone and get prosecuted then where is the justice? Many criminals were originally victims but their story was never heard and nobody cared. Then they get labelled “bad”. Life can be very unfair.

@TruthsAndALie

Shamima Begum’s mother is not dead. She is still alive. I think you are confusing her with Sharmeena Begum who is a totally different person, and was a friend of Shamima Begum.

I don’t think she’s changed in the slightest, she’s playing her western audience. She’s highly intelligent and highly manipulative. She’s still surrounded by ISIS women, that hasn’t changed. In fact nothing has changed apart from the way she dresses (where is she getting her western clothes from?) and the way she presents herself. Radicalised leopards don’t change their spots, as Usman Kahn amply demonstrated on London Bridge in 2019.

Victim. She wasn't the first teenager to think she was more grown up than she was and to make a terrible decision in trying to find her place in the world. She ended up married at 15 to a virtual stranger, having one pregnancy after another and having three children die, all before reaching an age when many kids first leave home.

There is no evidence she has committed crimes in Syria or the Syrians would have charged her. They have not been slow in imprisoning and punishing people they think have committed crimes while part of Isis.
Even if you fear that she is radicalised, she is a British woman and was radicalised here. We should not dump our problems on poorer countries to deal with. When the government tried to make her Bangladesh's problem that was absolutely shameful.

Not a single person who advocates bringing her back is saying that happens with no security attached to it.
But she was born in the UK, raised here, and it was ultimately our security that messed up and let her travel.
She needs to come back and face a proper trial and face the consequences here. Not be left somewhere else where the security risk is arguably greater, without a trial.

Very bizarre the parents aren't on tv or the Bangladesh/Muslim community aren't campaigning for her. Maybe they are but the British media don't care

Very possibly, yes; after all they don't say much about the efforts much of the community's making to keep youngsters away from terrorism either

But as you say I was thinking about the family and the fact that a weeping relative's usually catnip to the media
Perhaps they're disinclined after catching a cold with Amira Abase's dad, or just maybe the family have good reason to wish to avoid drawing attention to themselves?

Maybe aware of the evidence that had been kept from public view and understand like the security forces and three Home Secretary’s why she can never step on uk soil . Could be in their interest to stay quiet.

Could be, Sallydimebar; after all the whole point is that we're not aware of all the info the security services have so it's hard to say

Overall though there doesn't seem much doubt that there's a lot more to this than meets the eye

And again - we have allowed back 100s of ISIS fighters who were men.
Has the government ever explained why they have allowed some back but not her?
No, because they can't there is no justification.

This. Whatever crimes she committed, is it likely that a 15 year old girl did worse things that the 300 or so males from the UK who went to fight for ISIS and who we've taken back? With the views ISIS hold on the roles for men and women? I would really like the government to explain how those men who fought for ISIS are fine to come back here and walk the street free, but SB isn't. She's being made an example of, while more dangerous people are here and free.

I agree there is stuff that we haven’t been told.
But I cannot think of any reason good enough to strip someone if citizenship and effectively make another, far poorer, country responsible for them.
And my big concern is that one of the things we are not being told is the calculations going on in terms of politics. I think a big part of this is to do with Tories looking for easy votes - and I think this very simplistic ‘leave her to rot’ approach will appeal to some people who don’t look beyond deadlines, or listen to reports concerning security in the camps etc.
Bottom line / I don’t trust the Tories to look beyond their own political gain, whatever the long term consequences.

BTW, the summary document from the Supreme Court makes reference to where closed material has been considered. It's mostly in relation to aspects such as who she communicated with before/during her time in ISIS, her travel, her husband's involvements, awareness among different agencies. It seems it doesn't refer so much to her activities while being there.

Bottom line, I think Sajid Javid made a decision in a rush and under pressure (and probably, as a non-practicing Muslim, concerned about his reputation and image). It's exceedingly politically difficult for any future HS from the same party to say "yes, this was a mistake, and sorry that an innocent baby died potentially as a result of said mistake." So they've doubled down. I'd be interested to hear Yvette Cooper's take on it.

The case has been described as a complex case. I don’t know what crimes she committed in the 7yrs she’s been over there , apart from the big one of joining the enemy .

Even bypassing her comments on the Manchester attack ,the attacks isis were committing in the months before she went , the journalist, the aid worker and countless others which had huge press/tv coverage at the time , at 15 , I’m fully positive she was aware of what she was stepping into . I have to go with trust in the security forces which her own family seem to have accepted.

I can’t comment on not bringing her back to face justice in this country .It would be the right thing to do in normal circumstances but without access fully to all info it’s hard to say . Right or wrong but the safety of the greater good comes before 1 individual.

But if someone can't/couldn't speak Arabic, how can they play an active role in ISIS? I take your point about awareness, but the way teenagers access news is very different to how adults access news. Now even more so, but certainly back then too.

“I’m fully positive she was aware of what she was stepping into .”

I’m not!
I would have said it was not possible to be unaware of big news stories until I talked to my own 14 year old. I have the news on all the time - in the car, at home. I talk to my kids about it. And even so, she missed hearing about the earthquake in Turkey for over a week. It wasn’t talked about by her friends, it didn’t appear on her social media feeds, and she doesn’t go looking for news. So it passed her by. I can easily see how a 15 year old who searched for ISIS had a news feed on her social
media dominated by the ‘positive’ aspects and if her friend was sending back glowing endorsements, why would she come across much negative stuff? If she’s getting her news from social media, the ultimate echo chamber, then I can see how her views were skewed.
In addition, her friend was there. When she did query anything her friend told her it was lies. So she had the ‘my mate is there and she says…’ to counter it. And adults are hugely susceptible to that, never mind teenagers.

It's naturally a complex case because of the elements involved. But I don't think she's got the capacity to completely mislead. Where she was evasive about the Egyptian, for example, it was very obvious that she wasn't being truthful.

“It's exceedingly politically difficult for any future HS from the same party to say "yes, this was a mistake, “

yes I get that or their quite confident with the evidence, it’s the right decision . Time will tell .