Shamima Begum, a British teenager who fled her home in East London and joined the Islamic State in Syria, says she now wants to come back home. Her reason? Not that she regrets joining the terrorist group, but that she fears her unborn child won't be safe.
In 2015, 15-year-old Begum was one of three British schoolgirls who left their comfortable lives in England almost overnight to join ISIS. She and the other girls with her each married a group militant.
It wasn't until the British newspaper The Times tracked her down in a refugee camp. They sat down with her for an interview to ask if she regretted her choice. Begum says she wasn't sorry about her decision but wants to come home to protect her child.
Now her case has become a global debate. Western countries are deciding whether to strip the citizenship of those who ran away to ISIS and now want to return. Some argue that ISIS has lost much of the territory so these women don't necessarily pose a threat, but others state that they knew ISIS' purpose and still went along.
Pari Ibrahim, the executive director of the Free Yazidi Foundation, a group that was created to help the vulnerable Yazidi community, said she rejected the narrative that the women who married ISIS soldier were innocent bystanders.
Pari Ibrahim and her foundation try to create awareness of ISIS' treatment of Yazidi women. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls have been forced into sexual slavery by ISIS as a part of the genocide against Yazidi in northern Iraq. Ibrahim states that "There has been no effort to understand why these ISIS brides are guilty….in some cases [the wives] would lock our Yazidi women in the houses so they could not escape. They would force them to do manual labor, humiliate them in captivity; they were beaten and tortured by the ISIS wives."
Because of Begum's participation with ISIS, European nations are reluctant to bring her home. Some say that she is innocent because she may have served as only a cook or cleaner for the soldier. But it's necessary for the nations to come together and put their citizen's safety above all else, ensuring that they are safe from ex-members of a terrorist group.
As a Muslim myself, I don't think that Shamima Begum should be allowed back into the UK. I understand that we all make foolish mistakes when we were 15, but those decisions aren't usually to join ISIS. As public as ISIS is, Begum knew what they had been doing to innocent Yazidis and other Muslims. She knew and still joined. Also, her reason to come back isn't sincere. She states that she isn't regretful about her decision but more worried about her child. Although I do believe that the child should be able to live it's life in the United Kingdom as it is innocent.
