Punishment may await Australia’s returned jihadi brides
Repatriating Islamic State families undeniably brings security and legal challenges, but should be done for ethical and national security reasons, a leading counter-terrorism expert says.
Repatriating Islamic State families undeniably brings risk but should be done for ethical and national security reasons, a leading counter-terrorism expert says.
Katja Theodorakis, head of counter-terrorism at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said Australia had a range of policy and legal options in place to deal with returning families.
The precedent case of the repatriation of two young family groups to Australia several years ago and the experience of other countries in repatriating children and adults could also be drawn upon.
“Repatriation of women, children and especially men is undoubtedly fraught with security and legal challenges, as well as ethical ones, but the Australian government cannot ignore the responsibility of Australian IS members and foreign fighters any longer, leaving the burden and risk with other nations, especially those inadequately resourced and otherwise ill-prepared to meet the burden,’’ Ms Theodorakis said.
“We have to do some deeper thinking on what encompasses the public interest here.’’
Non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute Rodger Shanahan said the key to repatriating the women was getting enough admissible evidence to allow arrest warrants to be issued for all of them prior to a return.
“Failure to do this may well allow some returnees to walk free on return, posing a security risk that will need addressing,’’ he writes in Monday’s The Australian.
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The Australian understands fewer than 10 of the women overseas would likely be charged upon return to Australia. Those who were would likely face charges of entering a proscribed area, relating to Islamic State’s de facto capital Raqqa, in 2014-17. The charges carry a maximum 10-year jail term but authorities think it unlikely Australian women would receive such lengthy terms.
Other potential charges could include being a member of a terrorist organisation, or providing material support. The women have all agreed to be placed on a court-directed control order, where their movements, associations and communications were monitored. They could be ordered to wear tracking devices and submit to home curfews.
Dr Shanahan said control orders had proven effective tools in monitoring the actions of people convicted in Australia of terrorism offences.
“Of 14 terrorism-related control orders issued, nine have been breached, which indicates not only a proclivity for terrorism offenders to ignore state-imposed orders but also the instruments’ effectiveness in alerting authorities to an individual’s willingness to reject state authority,’’ he writes.
Other countries used options ranging from family law court orders for minors to war crimes charges to manage their returnees.
“Finding a solution other than indefinite detention without charges also involves exploring potential evidence for international crimes such as torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide,’’ Ms Theodorakis said.
“In Germany, investigations and prosecution of women have increased as understandings of their varied roles are emerging.
“The specific war crimes included ‘outrages upon personal dignity, pillage, recruitment of child soldiers and the killing of a person protected under International Humanitarian Law’; the pillage charge was the result of the women living in houses seized after the owners were driven out or killed by IS.
“One Dutch woman who had shared and added degrading commentary to videos in which captured prisoners were executed by IS members in Syria was even tried and convicted of a war crime without leaving The Netherlands.
“Australian legal experts have pointed to the notable absence in public and political discourse of considering war crimes in this context. Some countries, including Germany, have charged returning women with offences centring on their children, for example child abduction or failure to fulfil their duty of care and education (such as taking a child into a war zone), or war crime charges in relation to Yazidi slaves.
“In France, female returnees are arrested upon arrival and placed in pre-trial detention in isolation units; they have so far been charged with child endangerment and/or war crimes; on average, a prison sentence of six to seven years has been handed down.
“In Germany, figures from December 2021 put the average jail term for female returnees from Syria and Iraq who joined the Islamic State between 2011 and 2021 at three years and 10 months.
“This is followed by an extensive, multi-pronged rehabilitation regime that draws on and expands existing mechanisms and initiatives.’’
However, Ms Theodorakis said managing the returning families should be about much more than just monitoring from a security and law enforcement perspective.
“While this is necessary, it is resource-intensive and most importantly does not provide a full solution: the challenge is to balance paedagogic, psychosocial, and security concerns, especially when we are talking about children suffering from possibly severe and complex trauma,’’ she said.
“Practitioners and experts stress that a long-term view on the challenges is needed, what is often referred to as tertiary prevention. Especially when returned children come into puberty, the re-emergence of traumas is common.
“In addition, the phenomenon of radicalised girls barely into their teenage years is identified as a particular challenge.”
Ms Theodorakis said it was important to remember children should primarily be treated as victims. For the women, “acknowledgment of (their) agency must be key even as levels of criminal culpability will vary.
“Dealing with female returnees poses particular challenges for security agencies and law enforcement, especially as many of the detained women claim victim status now, relying on IS’s fundamentalist role for women as ‘faithful mothers and housewives’.”
Ms Theodorakis said Islamic State-linked families “already pose a risk, and this will grow if we leave them over there … Aside from the ethical dimension and the damage to our international standing, it’s simply not an effective approach to reducing the terrorism risk.’’