The Women and children of ISIS’s fighters in Iraq… The organization has brought down but its remnant stay on

by:  Doaa Imam

It seems that the catastrophic repercussions of ISIS terrorist organization in Iraq will not end soon. As the dealing with the families of the organization’s members, especially children and women, looming as a new challenge, caused a great crisis for the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The Human rights organizations recommended a strategy expressed how the government should do with these families.

First of all,  this strategy would avoid the vengeance in dealing with them, taking into consideration that the children are not in the same position as their parents. Secondly,  a  integrated strategy should be taken to rehabilitate the children and protect them from being re-polarized by other extremist organizations.

Nevertheless, others warn of the consequences of expressing sympathy for these families, as they voluntarily joined to ISIS and trained in using weapons and explosives.

Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 1,400 foreign women and children, who belong to Arabian and Western states, such as Russia, France and Germany.

They fled from the ISIS territory during the battles, which liberated Mosul in northern Iraq. The Iraqi authorities prisoned the families of ISIS, in camps, one of them is located in Hammam al-‘Alil, near Mosul.

Among those prisoners, there are pregnant women, nursing mothers, while a number of children were transferred to orphanages in Baghdad.

The Iraqi government is negotiating with the embassies of some Arab and Western countries, over those women and children who surrendered during the battles in Mosul to let them return to their countries.

However, the issue of The Women and children of ISIS’s fighters is still pending on the decision of the Iraqi government, which has addressed the governments of these countries, to know whether or not they will accept them.

 Warning against  re-polarizing those families

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in London warns the countries which have accepted the return of its former citizens from this step. ICSR also criticized sympathy with women who were considered victims of their husbands.

In its last October report, ICSR stressed that the public sympathy with those families should not be a way for impunity, or disregard their voluntary allegiance to the terrorist organization, and their training in weapons, explosives and suicide operations, noting that they were subjected to ideological brainwashing .

ICSR added that, nothing prevent them to be re-polarized. In particular, the testimonies of some fugitives from ISIS confirmed that they had continued with the dissidents and asked them to continue to serve the organization wherever they were.

ICSR recommended providing psychotherapy programs for dissidents from the organization, as many of them suffer from mental illness due to the killings and slaughter they witnessed or participated in.

This step maybe helps the security authorities to reveal the circumstances of their joining to the organization, if it voluntarily or not, thus determine the degree of responsibility and the level of seriousness of these elements to the community.

In its report, ICSR identified four ideological and social reasons for joining the women to ISIS as well as personal and psychological factors, which are essentially weak points that can be exploited again by the organization or other terrorist organizations.