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?

Well I was 14 at the time of James bulger murder .The whole school knew about it and were horrified .
Yes the earthquakes probably would of escaped my son 14 only they were talked about in geography.
I can’t remember sitting down with my Dd 16 at anytime talking about isis , she would of been around 9 when they were active , but she is fully aware of what they stand for now at 16 and she doesn’t watch the news that’s just stuff she’s picked up on over time . Ds 13 might not know to much about them as it’s not front page now . Having been described as bright and a straight A pupil at school SB in my opinion would of been fully aware of isis and all they stood for .

The whole school knew - that’s kind of the point. Everyone was talking about it and had the same viewpoint.
Your Dd may well know about what ISIS stands for but what if she had friends out there saying “They are lying to you. I’m here and I’ve seen it. Look at this video of everyone having an amazing time in the park - how family orientated it is.” I can totally see how a teenager could be swayed by that.
After all, how many adults say “I’ve got a mate who works in this area/has been there and they say…”

If someone can’t/won’t speak Arabic, how can ISIS radicalise them? Because it has plenty of English speakers is how. Of course she could have played an active role. No matter how she accessed the news it was obvious that ISIS was barbaric and existed to torture and murder people. There had been two years of highly publicised attacks before she left the UK.

Oh, sure, but I'm not talking about radicalisation. I don't think it's feasible that she could have been morality police in Syria without having a decent grasp of Arabic or the relevant instruction, neither of which she appears to have had.

Even among the foreign ISIS recruits, many came from Arabic-speaking backgrounds (although not all). Second-gen North African, etc.

Yep. She knew it was a terror group and she knew she would be getting married - that was the main purpose of her going. Yes she was radicalised and exploited but she engaged in significant planning and covering her tracks and knew what ISIS was and what her role would be.

I don't think it's feasible that she could have been morality police in Syria without having a decent grasp of Arabic or the relevant instruction, neither of which she appears to have had

I don’t understand why you think that. I don’t suppose Sally Jones had a decent grasp of Arabic either.

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 that's the thing, is it likely that Shamima Begum is a bigger risk to the public than the hundreds of men who were part of ISIS that the government have allowed back? Is it likely a teenage girl with no Arabic was high up or did the worst atrocities? It just seems so unlikely to me that SB is such a danger, more than 100s of men who we have accepted back and who are walking free in the UK after fighting for ISIS.

She absolutely should be tried for her crimes, but not punished worse than men who actually killed for ISIS.

It could just be there was no option to keep them out whereas there was with her.

We probably don't know the full extent o r reasons why the government believe she is a high risk. She wasn't 15 when she said the bombings were justified.

The grounds for the decision are that the Home Secretary made it and it's within their gift to make such a decision. At the time, SB would have been a de facto Bangladeshi citizen, subject to technicalities which the HO admit they didn't investigate fully. SB's right to Bangladeshi citizenship would have lapsed as she's now over 21. The report establishes that, to anyone's knowledge, she has no links to Bangladesh and has never visited the country.

It's essentially a technical ruling. The mechanism by which her citizenship was revoked is correct. It's not a ruling on the facts of the case itself.

I don't think it's a simple case of her being one or the other

She's a victim. She's been abused, almost starved to death and had 5 of her children die over their due to malnutrition and poor healthcare. It's barbaric that she hasn't been brought back. People saying she's a criminal usually have no clue of her actual story

You can't even begin to form a comment if you don't know about her case then. Proof of what I said above

That’s rich coming from someone who thinks she had five children.

She had 5 pregnancies but only gave birth to 3 children. Miscarried 2.

A victim. My DD is 15, she’s no where near full maturity. The girl was groomed, how anyone can think otherwise I don’t know

3 children born, 2 miscarriages. That's 5, so I'm not sure what your point is?

I agree it seemed like there were details she was skirting over regarding the Egyptian and isn’t good at concealing lies.

He was allegedly quite senior and an arms dealer. She lives in a camp, in a tent. Anyone could get to her at any time and reprisals are a real thing. I would probably keep schtum as well.

What I'd be interested to know is, if it's the Home Secretary's decision, does a new Home Secretary automatically have the power to overrule it (without going back to court)?

Yvette Cooper wrote at the time that the three girls leaving to Syria was a child protection issue. I'd be interested to know what her take is on it now, although I don't know if she would be privy to the closed information. Politically, it would be easier for a Home Sec from a different party to reverse the decision.

I feel desperately sorry for the woman. She made a terrible, wrong choice. But she was a child. At 15, in this country, you cannot legally marry, leave school, vote, drink. There are reasons for that. Now her friends are dead, or being repatriated to their home countries. The friend who played a big part in persuading her to come to Syria denounced her as a 'dog' and says she was essentially socially awkward and useless. Her life is pretty screwed - even if she were allowed to return, she'd never have a normal life because she's notorious. But imagine sitting in that camp, day after day, knowing it could be forever or until she meets some unfortunate end.

Many of the teenagers and young men left the UK to go to ISIS did do terrible things. But I see them as victims too. Many of them were vulnerable, many of them actually had learning disabilities. Sure, some of them were just criminal. But they were just cannon fodder for the organisation - a body to strap a bomb to. Most of them are now dead.

I don't say Shamima Begum should be excused responsibility. She should be tried and prosecuted for any crimes she may have committed. But all this "eye for an eye" stuff I find really distasteful and I'm sorry, but I do think there's a racist element to it too.

It's a hard one. If she was to come back she'd either be found guilty (15 year olds know what they are doing, she was described as a very smart kid) and she will have to be kept in isolation in prison as to not influence others. Or she would be found not guilty, released but she would never be safe to walk the street for her own safety. She would get hounded by the press and people thinking she was guilty.
This will cost the tax payers million, look at how much has been spent on the two kids (now adults) who killed James bulger.

I don't understand how we can be 100% sure if she is guilty or not. We definitely don't have 100% of the the story.

It's impossible to say how much she was groomed by people online or how her family or friends influenced her (father was at anti-British march)

But still she is our problem and we need to do something.

It was Amira Abase's father who went on the march, not Shamima Begum's.

Of course it's never possible to know 100% of the story (in any case) but it's certainly possible to ascertain beyond reasonable doubt. It would also be possible that she's found guilty of having committed crimes but not a risk to radicalise others in prison, if her own mindset has changed.

I do agree that it's difficult to imagine her having much of a normal life, whatever the outcome. But it's essentially a similar decision to those which parole boards make - the risk to the public vs the best interests of the individual. For many who are let out on parole, it would be 'easier' to keep them inside, but it's also a question of whether it's morally justifiable.

There does seem to be an othering of victims if they don’t fit the mould of victim hood. So if you’re not white or are white but are poor and growing up in challenging circumstances. Then you are somehow expected to be older than your years.

I don’t know about Shamima, yes she was a victim. However has she been radicalised and is possibly a danger to others? I do think the government wants to discourage teenagers from thinking you can Join terrorist groups and then return. It’s unfair that she has to be the unwilling poster girl of a policy decision.

I think stripping someone of citizenship is a bit questionable in international law.

How can someone say 15 year olds ‘know what they’re doing’ when they haven’t reached the age of consent for pretty much anything? There is being book smart and there is being worldly. Her husband even described her as a blank page as she had such little experience of almost anything. This is not someone with middle class parents regularly travelling and having deep philosophical debates over dinner. This is a conservative immigrant family living at/near poverty conditions.

The school highlighted she and her friends were at risk but an assessment by the police didn’t agree. The parents weren’t told any of this.

She’s said in interview her social media profile and interactions can and have been reviewed so I think they know what’s been said/received.

@Blossomtoes

3 live births from 5 pregnancies over 4 years is abuse. The recommendation is 18 months between pregnancies to give the womb time to heal.

@TruthsAndALie

The parents were sent letters except instead of posting them they were given to the pupils who didn't give them to their parents. They should have been posted but it's cost saving. She does say that she never mixed with men at home and her father was living in Bangladesh with his new wife and family so he wasn't there to monitor her computer usage, she's of a generation where the kids know more than the parents. Also if Sajid Javid is right she'd be detained for a long time in the UK