During the past five years, ISIS or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria wreaked havoc in the two countries. During this pandemonium, some women also played their part, or at least tried to do so. One such woman is Shamima Begum who left Great Britain and reached Syria via Turkey to join the ISIS forces. Now when the ISIS has almost been eliminated and the war in that region is coming to a close, Shamima Begum wants to return to Britain whereas her husband wants his wife and child to move to Holland.

Shamima’s husband, Yago Riedijk, is a Dutch citizen and is now just 27 years old. It means when he joined the ISIS five years back, he must have been in his early 20s. Now Yago Riedijk is detained in a Kurd detention camp located in the north east of Syria. Even if both husband and wife manage to reach Britain or Holland, they are likely to face imprisonment for years. There are many similar couples who got into the trap of ISIS and went to the war front but ultimately ended up claiming that they have renounced the group.

They claim to have tried abandoning the warfront but the ISIS never allowed them to do so. After the complete annihilation of the ISIS, most of their fighters have either been killed or changed sides, that’s why the couples also want to go back to their normal lives. Many European men and women who joined and fought for the group now claim that they were never trusted by the ISIS top command and considered them American or European spies. If you just take Shamima’s example, you realise that most such women were very young and became a victim of romantic revolutionary zeal.

Shamima is 19 and when she left Britain she must have been just 15 years or so. Their last hideout was Baghuz town where they reached after fleeing from Raqqa. Now they claim that in Raqqa they were tortured by the extremists of ISIS who never considered the fact that these people had left their comfortable lives in Europe to join the fighters. In Baghuz, Riedijk was at the mercy of the militants and his wife Shamima managed to reach a refugee camp with her newborn infant. From there they moved to another unknown place.

Interestingly, these militants never shy of marrying underage girls right on the warfront, claiming that these girls voluntarily offer themselves for marriage. Shamima herself has confessed that she was just 15 when she joined the ISIS and requested their leaders to marry her off to any man. Her first husband died fighting and their child also died due to lack of care and medicines. Then she was married again, and now Shamima regrets that she acted with undue haste, and had she not married the situation would have been different for her.

She doesn’t like when her photos circulate across continents on mainstream and social media. She is now compelled to live a life that she never anticipated. Such women are in a quandary as no country is willing to accept them. Shamima’s parents are of Bengali origin who have lived in Britain for decades. Shamima was born in Britain but now her citizenship has been revoked on the pretext that her mother still holds the citizenship of Bangladesh where she can go and settle. Bangladesh has refuted the claims by saying that she is neither a Bangladeshi citizen nor will she be welcome there.

If she tries to enter the country she will be sent back immediately. Now Shamima’s family is trying to convince the British home ministry to change its decision of revoking Shamima’s citizenship. The British home minister, Sajid Javid, has been following a strict policy in this regard, whereas the opposition leader, Jeremy Corbin, has advised the British government to be lenient in this matter. He says, when she left she was too young to make judicious decisions, and now she must have learned her lessons. Holland, on the other hand, has not revoked her husband’s citizenship and they are more likely to move to Holland.

Another similar case is pertaining to Hoda Mothana who has been dubbed the ‘ISIS Bride’ by the US media. She is an American citizen and her father has filed a case for her return. Just like Shamima, Hoda Mothana too ran away to join the ISIS. Her father, Ahmad Ali Mothana, has sued the Trump administration for an unlawful decision to revoke her citizenship. Hoda was a student but now she has quit the militant group and wants to face the trial against her. President Trump has ordered his administration to not allow her back into the US. He thinks she would again start propaganda for the ISIS.

Belonging to Alabama, Hoda was 19 when she discontinued her studies and collected back the college fee to purchase a ticket to flee from America, without even informing her parents. Now after five years she is 24 and mother of an 18-month old child. She and her family are struggling to get her back to the US. They are ready to face any trial but maintain that blocking her return is unlawful. Hoda has taken full responsibility of her past actions. Just like the British home secretary, Sajid Javid, the American secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claims that Hoda has no right to demand an American passport or visa.

Hoda’s father was a Yemeni diplomat in the UN and in 2004 the US government had granted Hoda American citizenship and issued her a passport when she was just nine. This was done because Hoda was born in the US. Just like Shamima, Hoda is also living in a refugee camp. She also married more than once, but now regrets all this. Such developments are a cause of concern for Muslim families living in America or Europe. These parents impose undue restrictions on their children especially on their daughters, making them rebels of sorts.

If these parents wanted to continue with their past practices, they should have stayed where they were rather than moving to western countries. The children of such parents are impressed by the freedoms enjoyed by other children in their adopted countries. When parents restrict their movements and impose limitations, the rebel children leave their homes. Such events take place in countries like Pakistan too, and the only solution to this problem is not to force children to live in a suffocating atmosphere. When children leave homes, like Shamima and Hoda did, they are more likely to end up in a limbo.