Shamima Begum

[Mamabear04]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2n8xv61x3o

I'll admit I actually don't know much about this apart from it being on the news when it happened and I did watch a documentary about it. Do you think she should be allowed to have British citizenship? I mean she was a child when it happened, surely she was groomed? And now stateless, doomed to live indefinitely in a camp with nowhere to go? I think running away to join Isis is of course absolutely awful but surely she should be treated as a child that was groomed? Or am I missing something?

I believe it is Bangladeshi. I seem to remember her father lives there, but it’s years since I read about her.

The court looked at whether she could appeal her loss of citizenship, There is no arguable case in law they said. Being a child and grooming has nothing to do with the case today. They can take her citizenship away and it’s lawful.

I could forgive her actions as a 15 year old but not her complete lack of remorse or repentance since.

She wasn't actually she was a child. Do you say the same thing about white girls that are groomed and abused????

Let’s not pretend that this decision hasn’t been influenced by the media and public sentiment. Her citizenship should never have been removed; we made her stateless. She is our problem, and had it been kept quieter and had less exposure, I really think they would have allowed her back to be tried and convicted if deemed necessary.

Politicians are influenced by the media. Judges tend not to be. It is their job to interpret the law.

You mean the thousands of young working class blonde girls who were groomed in poor Northern towns and whose grooming the police and local authorities ignored for decades? If only their stories got as much airtime as her story.

She was a child, a deeply unhappy child who didn’t feel she had a future in the UK and was groomed into believing her life would be better if she joined ISIS. She had a horrific time out there and lost 3 babies. She was still only 19 when she was discovered and was clearly traumatised. Some of the privileged white men who interviewed her and goaded her at the time should be ashamed of themselves.

@queenofdarkness666 and are now being rioted over and have always provoked anger in their communities?

15 when she left the uk. How old was she when the grooming started, I wonder.

I agree, OP. She should be brought back and monitored, with rehabilitation.

I don't care what anyone thinks of me saying that. She was a child (15?) when she went out. Since then she has been forced into terrible marriages and all three of her babies have died.

Who did she kill?

This. THEY should of brought her back much sooner as well.

She stayed willingly when she was an adult, she saw peoples heads being put in bins and didn't care, she helped fit people with suicide bombs, she only wanted to come back after ISIS was pretty much defeated, she would have happily stayed there helping them otherwise. I feel sorry for the child she was, not for the adult she became and I don't want her back in the UK, possibly stirring up hatred.

What evidence do you have for this?

Do you say that about all teenage girls who are victims of grooming?

she was groomed and trafficked. And I understand that there were opportunities to prevent her and her friends leaving the country, which were purposefully not taken. I find that unforgivable in the case of minors being permitted to travel abroad without their families' knowledge or consent.

I have no idea whether she is a 'good' person or what her personal beliefs now are but she should never have been made stateless.

She admitted a lot of it, practically bragged about it in interviews.

I got involved with Christian fundies in my teens, and suffered greatly for it. I was an idealistic kid who didn't like the way the world was going, and when someone came along with an alternative vision that sounded appealing, I jumped in and gave it my all.

She's done something pretty similar. It's had far worse consequences for her, but I see a lot of me in her, and as such think she's been treated abominably badly. I think she deserves another chance.

Do you really think that with people from ISIS presumably looking on while she is interviewed she will be free to slag them off and say how stupid it is to actually join them?

What would happen to her after the cameras stopped recording if she said the wrong thing? These are not kind people who will offer comfort and solutions.

Im on the fence.

On the one hand, she was 15 and groomed. However, unlike others in that situation she doesn't appear to have learnt anything and doesn't appear able to reflect on what she's done. If she did, I'd be more sympathetic.

What she did is irrelevant. Yes she should keep her British citizenship. It is a basic tenet of international law that you cannot make a person stateless which is that the UK government has decided to do. To do so is utterly irreponsible.

Her age and what she may or may not have done is irrelevant. She is (was) a British citizen and as such is our responsibility. If she committed crimes then bring her back and put her on trial for those crimes.

Ironically I can help but think that growing up in a U.K. with racist riots going on is likely to push more youngsters into the hands of radical groomers

Trouble is she’s the poster girl for punishment. I understand that other women, and plenty of men (obviously) have made their way back from Isis, and other terrorist organisations, but without the fanfare.

She also is composed, and not crying and beating her breast with shame and remorse, which is what society seems to demand.

Of course she should be returned to stand trial, and then the key thrown away, if necessary. She is, rather unfortunately admittedly, a citizen of the UK.

This.

Leave her there. She's being treated a lot better than the people she condones the murder of.