The women and children are part of a larger group of about 34 women and children who are trying to reach Australia.
When Islamic State militants swept across large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and subsequently established their caliphate there, many people traveled to Syria with the goal of joining the group. Among them were many women, but when they arrived in Syria, they were usually quickly married to fighters.
That is why over the years they have been called “brides of ISIS”.
Tens of thousands trapped in Syria for years
Since the fall of the caliphate, the Syrian Kurds have held thousands of foreign ISIS fighters and their families in detention camps. In total, they are believed to have held around 55,000 women and children in several camps in Syria, where the conditions have been considered very bad.
The Kurds have long complained about having to deal with foreign fighters and their families. The governments of their home countries have not wanted to accept them, so these women and their children have been stuck in the camps for years.
There have long been concerns about extreme radicalization in the camps, where the values of the Islamic State are said to have largely held ground.
The four women in question traveled from Australia to Syria at one time and in recent years have stayed with their children in a camp called Al Roj. However, they and other women were released from there last month and have been trying to get back to Australia with their children.
Get no help from the authorities in Australia
Since their release, they have been heading to Damascus, Syria, but authorities there recently said the women had been denied entry to the international airport there, because Australian authorities had refused to accept them.
The women are all Australian citizens, but Australian officials said this morning that the aforementioned four women and their children now have a flight booked to Australia. They are supposed to land there tomorrow, Thursday, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
More Australian women are still in Syria trying to get back to Australia. The country’s government has gone out of its way to help them in some way.
The ABC has quoted Krissi Barrett, Australia’s top police chief, as saying that “some of the group” will be arrested and charged upon arrival in the country tomorrow. The children will receive psychological support, diagnosis and help to integrate into Australian society.
Barrett said the police had for years gathered information about the four women and others who joined ISIS. In this way, it would have been necessary to verify whether they had violated Australian law and whether it could be proven.
Below you can see a recent TV report by ABC about the women and the children.
It is often difficult to prove a crime
In many cases where foreign ISIS fighters have returned home, it has proved difficult to convict them in court, as there has been little real evidence that they joined the terror group. In most states it was not illegal to travel to Syria, if it could be proven that the person had gone to Syria at all.
This is a big reason why the Syrian Kurds have put up with these people over the years.
In Australia it was made illegal to travel to Syria at this time. There, police officers have also tried to gather information about whether the women and others have violated international law or violated human rights laws, such as slavery, which was common in the ISIS caliphate in previous years.
Some MPs in Australia have called for the women to be stripped of their passports and barred from returning on grounds of national security.
The attack on Bondi Beach in Australia last year is believed to have fueled this view among many Australians. The father and son who carried out the deadly attack are said to have been inspired by the Islamic State.
See also: “My goal was just to get the gun off him”
It has been done elsewhere in the world, such as in Britain in the case of Shamimu Begum, who was fifteen years old when she and two of her friends went to Syria. The friends are dead, but she remains in the Al Roj camp after being stripped of her British citizenship.
