Khaled Sharrouf jihadi kids are ‘victims’, and minister says they need help and a chance to reform
AS more disturbing images Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf’s children emerge, the government says the kids deserved a chance to reform.
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THEY may be photographed holdings guns and bomb vests and carrying human heads but Australian children of terrorists should be dealt with as child abuse victims and deserved a chance to reform, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said yesterday.
As more disturbing video images of the children of Australian jihadist Khaled Sharrouf posed up in a suicide vest and being asked how to murder non-Muslim Australians emerge, Mr Keenan said it was the parents who were guilty and not necessarily their kids.
Mr Keenan agreed all such depictions were “an enormous concern” to government but would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
He said his greatest concern remained those who were directly trained and fighting with ISIS and plotting to return to Australia to do harm but there was a legislative framework to deal with them. Families were different.
“There are cases where families have been taken by their father and mother into war zones, as astonishing at that is that a parent would do that to a child, we will seek to prosecute the parents for what they have done,” he told News Corp Australia.
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“But for the families themselves when you are dealing with young children, we need to put them into the social services system run by the states to ensure their welfare is looked after, that is what we would seek to do.”
He said it was a “terrible generalisation” to suggest kids in these images such as holding guns or decapitated human heads as trophies were beyond reform.
“In no circumstances are we going to accept anyone who poses a security risk to Australia but a seven-year-old we have to work with them to try and bring them back to the community, they’ve been exposed to terrible experiences but they are blameless in that because they are seven years old and have had to deal with what their parents have done,” he said.
He added: “A young child who has been taken to a conflict zone is as much a victim of that parent’s bad behaviour but we need to make sure where they have been exposed to these sorts of horrible things in the midst of the civil war that they get some support from the Australian government in the same way as other abused children gets support.”
The Sharrouf’s five children left Australia with their father in 2013 and the family of his wife Tara Nettleton, who died of medical complications, has been trying to bring the children home.
Mr Keenan as well as Defence Minister Marise Payne, both in the Middle East for high-level counter terrorism discussions with counterparts, said he couldn’t understand why some people were against trying to help the children of jihadists.
He said a national program, based on program already created by both Queensland and NSW police, would be rolled out to ensure those with mental health issues - adult or child – are specifically be addressed and the states had programs for deradicalising children.
He confirmed it was expected some families would seek to return to Australia in coming months as ISIS was routed in Syria and Iraq.
Originally published as Khaled Sharrouf jihadi kids are ‘victims’, and minister says they need help and a chance to reform
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