Sajid Javed and Shamima Begum: The courage to act with compassion

Over the past few days I have found myself increasingly troubled by the case of Shamima Begum – the young British mother wanting to return to the UK with her baby after fleeing the country as a teenager in 2015 to join Islamic State in Syria.

Yesterday the Home Secretary, Sajid Javed, ordered that she be deprived of British citizenship and barred from returning to the UK.

I am concerned that this decision has arisen from a background of fear. In taking this step, I feel that the Home Secretary is:

• ignoring the nature of the grooming and exploitation process that underlies radicalisation;
• trying to tackle an organisation that tramples on human rights by further abusing the rights of an individual; and that
• rather than protecting the British public, this measure could ultimately escalate both fear and resentment.

In view of this, I have written this letter to the Home Secretary.

To act with compassion requires courage, but is the only way to tackle the hatred and violence that IS embodies.

Do you agree?

Rt Hon Sajid Javed MP

Secretary of State for the Home Department

 

Dear Mr Javed,

I am writing to express my concern over the decision you have made to deprive Ms Shamima Begum of her British Citizenship.

While I appreciate your responsibility, as Home Secretary, to protect all British citizens, I do not agree that this step is either necessary or appropriate to do so. Furthermore, by taking this step, you are potentially depriving Ms Begum and her baby of one of the most fundamental human rights, that of having a home and a country.

When Ms Begum left London in 2015, along with her friends Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, they were all three children and, as I am sure you will acknowledge, were victims of the grooming and exploitation that lies beneath any radicalisation. As a paediatrician and specialist in child protection, I have come across many cases of children and young people who have been subject to all forms of criminal exploitation, including radicalisation. What is clear from these is the very insidious nature of the grooming process and how many of these young people just do not recognise that they are victims of exploitation. These issues were clearly identified in the 2017 Serious Case Review on siblings W and X published by Brighton and Hove Local Safeguarding Children Board and in Mr Justice Hayden’s judgement in London Borough of Tower Hamlets v B [2016] EWHC 1707 (Fam).

The government’s own Prevent strategy and Channel guidance recognise that the process of radicalisation is a complex phenomenon with many similarities to child sexual exploitation and to criminal exploitation in gang membership and county lines. Whether or not Ms Begum recognised it, she was a victim of exploitation. I have no doubt that the processes of grooming and exploitation have continued over the years she has spent with Islamic State in Syria.

In revoking her citizenship and thus denying her the support and care of her family, I believe you are taking the step of punishing the victim, rather than addressing the deeper root causes of radicalisation which led to her taking that step in the first place. This step will do nothing to make the British public safer.

Rather than taking punitive action against a vulnerable young mother and her child, surely, as a free, democratic and humane society, we should respect her individual rights, recognise the reality of the exploitation to which she has been subjected, and offer the compassion due to a mother who has already suffered the loss of two of her children.

By allowing Ms Begum to return to the UK with her child, the way is then open for a full and fair investigation into both the nature of the exploitation to which she was subjected before leaving this country and into any crimes that she may have committed and any potential threat she may now pose to the British people, following due process of the law of our country. That way we also open the possibility for Ms Begum herself to change, to learn from her experience, and potentially to take more effective steps to prevent other young people being exploited in this way.

 

Yours sincerely

Peter Sidebotham