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?

Victim

The problem is that we have discharged our obligation to accept her back. If we don't have to accept her back, then why would we? She represents a huge, ongoing expense, a risk, a security threat on legs. She cannot bring anything positive even if she is allowed to apply afresh as a brand new case.

Victim. 15 is so young, she was groomed.

So it’s fine to just pass all that to Syria? Why? Are you ok with other countries doing that to the UK?

I mean essentially that reads as saying “as long as she’s a threat to other people, but not me, that’s fine.” Why should the Syrian people have to foot the bill and live with the danger she apparently represents? It’s not as though Syria is rolling in money. She wasn’t born there, why is it their problem?

Again, why is t Syria’s problem? She wasn’t born there. Or are we saying any criminal that travels somewhere becomes the problem of the receiving country? So we can’t deport criminals back to their countries then?

Of course she was a victim. The Supreme Court has ruled so, so if you believe in our justice system then you have to agree she was a victim. IDK where the idea that she actually did anything )apart from be abused by her husband and have miscarriages and children die) during her time there comes from. The only source I’ve heard was another ISIS bride on the podcast saying she was a nobody. It was also a massive safeguarding failure of the police here. They knew the girls were planning on going. They could have stopped them. It actually sickens me to my stomach to think we’ve left her and her children to rot. Our great country might just disown you if you step out of line and have brown skin.

Because otherwise it says to the world that we are prepared to dump anyone we see as a problem on their doorstep, whether they belong to that country or not. Why would Syria cooperate with us in trying to get refugees sorted out, for example, if we look at someone we have decided is a dangerous criminal, and said “err, actually you keep her. I know she wasn’t born in your country but you hang on to her - it’s not safe for us to have her back.” How can we then open up discussions about displaced people and the responsibility of other countries without them just laughing in our face?

Just make her stateless. The UN can do whatever. She really isn't our problem anymore.

Of course not. But she is physically present in the region and had pledged to make a life there so it is more an immediate question for them to decide what to do. In net terms, the UK takes a lot more people that it arguably doesn't have any obligations towards supporting.
I do wonder if the story would have been very different if her marriage had thrived. She is pursuing the fallback option because that's her best bet and it will come to pass with sufficient pressure.

Sajid Javid had said that if the public knew what the security forces knew we would not want her back. If she wasn’t seen as a risk she would be back here but there is some reason they believe her to be a massive risk.

Why is it Syria’s problem? She wasn’t born there

Fine, so let them deport her if they wish. All they'd have to do is find someone else who's prepared to take her, but that doesn't mean the UK's obliged to - something which has already been backed in law a number of times, though that's often conveniently ignored

But she does become somebody’s problem- she doesn’t just cease to exist. So whose problem should she be if not ours?

But no one will if she’s that much of a danger. So where should she go? “Not here” isn’t an answer because she has to actively be somewhere- she cannot be nowhere. I think Syria are simply struggling to cope - especially after the earthquake etc. I’m not convinced they have the means to deport Herat this point. And even if they did deport her where, if the place she was born won’t have her? It’s just passing off responsibility but not accepting that others are not responsible either.

She's both. In my opinion still dangerous.

The UK are known for coming down hard on terrorists and the court of public opinion combined with a need to find scapegoats gave us The Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6. All innocent, all white. See also the extreme army torture methods used on people during the 'troubles' in Ireland.

Her unfortunate comments (Manchester bomb etc) in those early interviews sealed her fate, agree with a previous poster that if she had spoken to a lawyer first and said less to the media she might be in the UK now.

Both and that nuance must not be lost. At the start she was a 15 year old who was groomed. It will be a case of breaking down the crimes she committed and then looking for each whether she was criminally responsible and what the mitigating circumstances are. The debate is so polarised - child victim versus adult terrorist. t

A bit of both, and she should be home in the UK.

But no one will (take her) if she’s that much of a danger

No and I wouldn't blame them in the least

So where should she go?

As things stand she can stay in Syria - not ideal, but perhaps the only realistic possibility if nobody else wants her. It's said that the UK's already spent over £3.8 billion supporting the country over the last 10 years, so it's not as if we'd have contributed nothing towards the needs of those living there

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1134337/UK_Syria_Crisis_Response_Summary__Feb_2023.pdf

But we do hold children much younger to account for criminality and presumably all children are criminal because of some kind or abuse /grooming in the background (I'm talking serious criminality not graffitti or shoplifting). For example Robert Thompson and Jon Venables aged when they killed Jamie Bulger and in the 60s Mary Bell who killed two children, again aged only 10 when she killed.

They all rightly served time behind bars. Begum was much older - half as old again - and has not appeared particularly remorseful. I'll save most of my sympathy for the victims of the terror group, mainly the women and girls used as sex slaves.

Having said that I do still think she should have been prosecuted here in the UK and if convicted served her sentence here. I also think there are many adults who need holding to account from the family of the three girls to the system that lets three girls use passports to leave the country without their parents' permission.

There is no doubt in my mind that Begum should be held accountable for her actions though agreed her age should give some context.

Both.

Either way, she is the UK's problem to deal with. Not to palm off on some other unfortunate country.

Maybe we have. But it could also be argued that we have helped to destabilise much of the Middle East, so are only paying to help redress some of that. And again, why should Syria have to deal with her? She actually went to join the caliphate, not Syria. The caliphate no longer exists. So no one can really be said to have responsibility. But someone has to because she has to live somewhere. The whole mess is so much more complex than “we don’t want her.” So many other countries with their own priorities and need for safety. And I do really worry that we are storing up problems for the future, creating breeding grounds for even more extremism in the future. Why wouldn’t people living in those conditions be resentful and even more convinced they were right? So what happens when their children, for example, are able to leave?

Penalising people so harshly hasn’t got a great track record.

I really don't think her skin colour had anything to do with it. They deprived Jack Letts who is white of his British citizenship and prosecuted his parents as well.

That is true but Letts did hold dual citizenship. Whilst I think it was just a way for the British government to wash their hands of dealing with them he hasn’t been left completely stateless, unlike Begum. Begum has no dual citizenship. There is something very unsettling about it and I don’t believe a white person with no dual citizenship would be treated this way as there would rightly be an outcry. I do believe she’s been treated differently because of her colour.

Criminal. 100%. Stop enabling.