British IS schoolgirl 'wants to return home'

[Magnus McGinty]

the best forms of coercion get people to do something because they think it's their idea

Difficult to know if it was that or whether she voluntarily entered a war zone because an ultra conservative state simply appealed to her.

 

[Rob Ray]

Is it still trafficking though if someone boards the plane via their own agency? I thought there had to be an element of coercion to it.

Under British law 15-year olds are not capable of giving informed consent to have sex, so getting her to board a plane to go and marry a man overseas is child grooming and rape. More generally whether something is trafficking or not gets a little greyer dependent on an assessment of capability. A famous case of non-violent/coercive trafficking currently in the news of course is Andrew Tate, but broadly there are millions of people in cults who have often been manipulated in really quite terrible ways, including adults, many of whom have to be subsequently rescued for their own safety.

In this case, the law appears to suggest that she should have had an "oh shit" moment when she turned 16 and whatever happened after that is completely divorced from any prior context.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Difficult to know if it was that or whether she voluntarily entered a war zone because an ultra conservative state simply appealed to her.

Well it clearly was the case that the idea appealed to her. It is also the case that she was 15 years old. Some agency, but not yet an adult either legally or morally. She is both a perpetrator and a victim. Life is messy sometimes.

 

[girasol]

Was she 15 when she left? Seems a weird stance for the government to take. Putting the grooming issue aside (which it shouldn’t be), legally we’re seen as unable to make loads of decisions relating to body autonomy and/or significant life changes
when we’re under the age of 16 years old. But she’s seen as competent in making the decision as a minor to leave the UK to join ISIS…

She was 15 yes, and I still don't understand how the fuck she got through passport control without an adult/parental consent?!?! We had a hard time travelling with my son when he was 13, as he needed his father's written/notarised consent, and yet somehow 3 underage girls get through...

It's fucking ridiculous - she went there thinking she was going to find paradise, a place where she'd be happy - with very little understanding of the reality of it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Was she 15 when she left? Seems a weird stance for the government to take. Putting the grooming issue aside (which it shouldn’t be), legally we’re seen as unable to make loads of decisions relating to body autonomy and/or significant life changes
when we’re under the age of 16 years old. But she’s seen as competent in making the decision as a minor to leave the UK to join ISIS…

And not only that. If she had been over 21, the UK government would not have been able to strip her of her citizenship. Her youth has been weaponised against her.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Under British law 15-year olds are not capable of giving informed consent to have sex, so getting her to board a plane to go and marry a man overseas is child grooming and rape. More generally whether something is trafficking or not gets a little greyer dependent on an assessment of capability. A famous case of non-violent/coercive trafficking currently in the news of course is Andrew Tate, but broadly there are millions of people in cults who have often been manipulated in really quite terrible ways, including adults, many of whom have to be subsequently rescued for their own safety.

You make some good points but it’s actually under the age of 13 where girls can’t legally give consent. It’s still illegal for an adult to have sex with someone under 16 but isn’t statutory rape.

 

[savoloysam]

I'm betting that the sticking point has been the apparent lack of remorse and her alleged so called continuing support for Isis (saying that the Manchester bomber's actions were righteous). It is that kind of evidence that would have allowed the judgement that she remains a threat to national security. Not saying it's right but those will be the legal arguments.

 

[girasol]

The problem is that she's been too honest about how she felt while it was all happening, which is different from how she feels now. She should have lied more, cried more and kept it simple - nice black and white feelings and descriptions so they fit the headlines, because people don't have the time to get into the full story. They just pick up the soundbites and make simplistic judgements on that.

 

[Petcha]

Is it still trafficking though if someone boards the plane via their own agency? I thought there had to be an element of coercion to it.

If you've watched the doco, you'll realise she wasn't exactly the brains of the operation. The two friends she travelled with and the one who convinced them to come over were, they groomed her. She was just the only one lucky enough to survive.

She was a child. This is so so wrong, whatever you think of her. She was just trying to be with the in-crowd. I don't believe for a moment her claims she hadn't viewed videos of their executions of course. In the doco she said the first she knew of this was when they were waiting in the bus shelter in Turkey and watched some stuff on YouTube. Er... yeh right.

She contradicts herself repeatedly in the film - and looked very uncomfortable when pulled up on it - ie, the interview she gave in 2019 when she said she used to walk past beheaded heads in rubbish bins but it didnt bother her but in this latest round of interviews said she had never seen any sign of atrocities.

But no, this is an awful decision. If she had been 18 then yes, I'd agree but she wasn't.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’m not sure how the govt can de facto make her stateless though, which they have done, as a signatory of the Geneva Convention.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm betting that the sticking point has been the apparent lack of remorse and her alleged so called continuing support for Isis

Not really no, she rejected Isis saying the fact she was a member "makes me hate myself" and has been offering to actively help fight terrorism since 2021.

Former IS teenage bride Shamima Begum offers to help fight terror in UK

The 22-year-old, who left London at 15 to join the Islamic State group, says she could be useful.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I’m not sure how the govt can de facto make her stateless though, which they have done, as a signatory of the Geneva Convention.

They claim that she has Bangladeshi citizenship by virtue of the fact that she has at least one Bangladeshi parent and by Bangladeshi law anyone with a Bangladeshi parent, anywhere in the world, is a Bangladeshi citizen up to the age of 21, whether they know it or not (she did not). The Bangladeshi government denies that she is a Bangladeshi citizen, and of course there is no document anywhere in the world that says she is or has ever been a Bangladeshi citizen - the Bangladeshi government doesn't keep a record of all the births of people who would qualify via this rule.

I'm repeating myself here, but I don't get why people don't see how this is a racist action. At a stroke, the British government has created a second-class citizen status for thousands of British kids based on their Bangladeshi heritage. You can bet your arse the groomers will be pointing this fact out to potential Begums of the future.

 

[Pickman's model]

You make some good points but it’s actually under the age of 13 where girls can’t legally give consent. It’s still illegal for an adult to have sex with someone under 16 but isn’t statutory rape.

and some people have the gall to say i'm pedantic

 

[Pickman's model]

They claim that she has Bangladeshi citizenship by virtue of the fact that she has at least one Bangladeshi parent and by Bangladeshi law anyone with a Bangladeshi parent, anywhere in the world, is a Bangladeshi citizen up to the age of 21, whether they know it or not (she did not). The Bangladeshi government denies that she is a Bangladeshi citizen, and of course there is no document anywhere in the world that says she is or has ever been a Bangladeshi citizen - the Bangladeshi government doesn't keep a record of all the births of people who would qualify via this rule.

I'm repeating myself here, but I don't get why people don't see how this is a racist action. At a stroke, the British government has created a second-class citizen status for thousands of British kids based on their Bangladeshi heritage. You can bet your arse the groomers will be pointing this fact out to potential Begums of the future.

not just bangladeshi either is it

 

[Magnus McGinty]

and some people have the gall to say i'm pedantic

It’s not pedantry to point out that the central plank of an argument isn’t legally correct.

 

[Petcha]

They claim that she has Bangladeshi citizenship by virtue of the fact that she has at least one Bangladeshi parent and by Bangladeshi law anyone with a Bangladeshi parent, anywhere in the world, is a Bangladeshi citizen up to the age of 21, whether they know it or not (she did not). The Bangladeshi government denies that she is a Bangladeshi citizen, and of course there is no document anywhere in the world that says she is or has ever been a Bangladeshi citizen - the Bangladeshi government doesn't keep a record of all the births of people who would qualify via this rule.

I'm repeating myself here, but I don't get why people don't see how this is a racist action. At a stroke, the British government has created a second-class citizen status for thousands of British kids based on their Bangladeshi heritage. You can bet your arse the groomers will be pointing this fact out to potential Begums of the future.

The optics of this were probably helped by the fact the Home Secretary at the time was also the child of Asian immigrants. As have the next two (I think). It might be a little cynical but are cases like these, plus the migrant crisis, the reason they were all appointed? Might look a bit bad for a white upper class Old Etonian to be pulling the strings here?

 

[Pickman's model]

It’s not pedantry to point out that the central plank of an argument isn’t legally correct.

no, that's very definitely pedantry. even tho you introduced the really good straw man of statutory rape. no one here cares a jot whether everything posted is legally correct, except - i thought - athos, and even then only in episodes of the athos show. the general point Rob Ray makes you take no issue with, you go off on this peculiar tangent - you're being a pedant, you're not undermining the central plank of his argument. sorry.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

You make some good points but it’s actually under the age of 13 where girls can’t legally give consent. It’s still illegal for an adult to have sex with someone under 16 but isn’t statutory rape.

In practice that 13 to 15 year period is a bit messy. It’s there so two 13 year olds who consent to sex with each other don’t get prosecuted, or likewise a 16 year old having sex with their willing 15 year old partner. When the partner is considerably older and/or there are coercive elements, consent isn’t considered to be informed consent, or true consent at all.

And of course, if those 13 year olds shared intimate images of themselves to each other, that’s a criminal offence. I’m not questioning that but I would question why that’s a child protection issue whilst a 15 year old groomed by adults into leaving the country is viewed as a rational choice from a position of informed consent, and therefore justifiable in removing her citizenship.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

no, that's very definitely pedantry. even tho you introduced the really good straw man of statutory rape. no one here cares a jot whether everything posted is legally correct, except - i thought - athos, and even then only in episodes of the athos show. the general point Rob Ray makes you take no issue with, you go off on this peculiar tangent - you're being a pedant, you're not undermining the central plank of his argument. sorry.

They literally argued that sex with a 15 year old was rape.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

In practice that 13 to 15 year period is a bit messy. It’s there so two 13 year olds who consent to sex with each other don’t get prosecuted, or likewise a 16 year old having sex with their willing 15 year old partner. When the partner is considerably older and/or there are coercive elements, consent isn’t considered to be informed consent, or true consent at all.

And of course, if those 13 year olds shared intimate images of themselves to each other, that’s a criminal offence. I’m not questioning that but I would question why that’s a child protection issue whilst a 15 year old groomed by adults into leaving the country is viewed as a rational choice from a position of informed consent, and therefore justifiable in removing her citizenship.

So it all turns on whether it was coercive or not, which is difficult to prove either way as the girls had agency when boarding the plane.

 

[Pickman's model]

They literally argued that sex with a 15 year old was rape.

it's not the central plank of their argument. and even if it was you'd point out that sexual activity by an adult with someone under sixteen while not always rape is always a crime. this correspondence is now closed.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So it all turns on whether it was coercive or not, which is difficult to prove either way as the girls had agency when boarding the plane.

Of course it was coercive. Doesn't mean the girls had zero agency. And doesn't mean Begum shouldn't be held accountable for what she did if she were to return to the UK. That's the problem with applying law to this kind of thing - the law isn't always very good at dealing with the complexity and moral ambiguity of the world.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Of course it was coercive. Doesn't mean the girls had zero agency. And doesn't mean Begum shouldn't be held accountable for what she did if she were to return to the UK. That's the problem with applying law to this kind of thing - the law isn't always very good at dealing with the complexity and moral ambiguity of the world.

I’m not sure I agree. Women/girls under coercive control generally have complaints to make about it. Not Begum. Which to me somewhat diminishes that line of argument.

 

[Riklet]

But Wat about are OWN BRITLISH homeless/?

Come on you know perfectly well this is a shit false equivalency. Don't be that person.

Its true but im feeling lazy and i dont care.

i cant be arsed to watch the documentary about this stupid liar. "Oh no I never saw any atrocities in those 3 years i was unaccounted for from 2016-2019". Just imagine the things shes seen and done as an adult. I will save my emotional energy for some Syrian and Kurdish people whose lives she ruined.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I’m not sure I agree. Women/girls under coercive control generally have complaints to make about it. Not Begum. Which to me somewhat diminishes that line of argument.

Sometimes it takes years to realise that something like this was coercive.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Sometimes it takes years to realise that something like this was coercive.

This is an un winnable argument then.

Personally my stance has softened. I think she should be allowed to return home to face the music. I don’t accept that she’s absolved of everything simply because she was 15 though. She’s above the age of criminal culpability.

 

[Petcha]

To play devil's advocate here. She is now 23. And still claims she had no idea what was going on or that the guy who she was living with after her hubby was imprisoned was quite a bit deal within IS (something the witnesses on the film said was absolutely impossible).

Maybe just come clean? And get tried here, banged up..? Rather than claiming she didn't know?

 

[Rob Ray]

Women/girls under coercive control generally have complaints to make about it.

Not always, no. In fact it's a very well-known phenomenon that people under coercive control will pretend, even to themselves, that this is not what's happening. Again, Andrew Tate is illustrative:

Around the corner, on the Brookside estate, we’re told that Tate rents a semi for some of his webcam performers. We wander across, stumbling through a sodden building site. The house is neat, whitewashed, and in better order than Tate’s, although its jarringly small windows make it look like a custody centre. On the porch is a young woman.

Jasmina is a Romanian in her mid-20s, pretty and charming. She has a lot of tattoos. One, on her arm, says “Tate”. Others are branded in a similar way: “Tate’s girl” or “Tate’s property”. We meet a second woman the following day at the same address. She is branded too.
...
The two branded women we meet at Tate’s rented house have been with him for years. They are both being treated as victims by the prosecutor, but both say they’re not victims at all. “I’ve never seen [either] of them being aggressive or rude. They’ve always respected people,” Jasmina told Romanian TV station Antena 1. Seemingly unaware of the possibility of psychological coercion, she told reporters: “The girls were never deprived of their freedom … the door was always open.”

 

[Pickman's model]

To play devil's advocate here. She is now 23. And still claims she had no idea what was going on or that the guy who she was living with after her hubby was imprisoned was quite a bit deal within IS (something the witnesses on the film said was absolutely impossible).

Maybe just come clean? And get tried here, banged up..? Rather than claiming she didn't know?

it'd be good if you were playing some sort of advocate. if she 'came clean' then you'd doubtless be first in line saying 'too little too late'.

 

[Dystopiary]

I’m not sure I agree. Women/girls under coercive control generally have complaints to make about it. Not Begum. Which to me somewhat diminishes that line of argument.

No.