Tory MPs Call for Repatriation of Allegedly Trafficked Jihadi Brides and Children: Report

TOPSHOT - An internal security patrol member escorts women, reportedly wives of Islamic St
DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Senior Conservative MPs are calling for the repatriation of jihadi brides and their children, citing a human rights charity which claims many are victims of trafficking.

Tobias Ellwood, Tom Tugendhat, and David Davis are amongst a group of Conservative MPs who wrote to the attorney general, home secretary, and foreign secretary calling for the return of the approximately 40 ISIS brides and their children from Kurdish-run detention centres in Syria.

“We are concerned that their current indefinite detention in increasingly precarious Kurdish detention camps poses a significant security challenge to the UK, as well as significant harm to the children involved,” the Tory MPs wrote in a letter seen by The Times and reported on Wednesday.

They added: “We urge you to ensure that these individuals are brought back to the UK so that any adults accused of crimes can be fairly prosecuted with due process, and the children’s safety is ensured.”

The calls come as former teen ISIS bride Shamima Begum earlier this month won her Court of Appeal case to return to the UK to fight in person in court the government’s decision to strip her of her British citizenship.

Now 20, Begum had indicated last year that she did not regret joining the Islamist terror group and described being unfazed at seeing severed heads while living in Islamic State-controlled Syria.

Her family had tried to claim that she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. A lawyer representing the family claimed last year that Islamic State had “groomed for exploitation and trafficked internationally” the then-15-year-old, who in 2015 travelled to the Middle East to join the murderous death cult. A Times journalist found her in a camp in February 2019.

Reports from last year claimed that as many as 100 children might have been born to ISIS brides in Syria who could attempt to lay claim to British citizenship through their parentage.

As a result of the Court of Appeal’s decision on Begum, it is estimated that some 150 jihadists stripped of their citizenship may challenge their exile and attempt to return to the UK to fight for their British citizenship to be restored.

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