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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

International refugee activists urge T&T: Take your nationals out of Syria

by

Shaliza Hassanali
491 days ago
20240311
FILE: Children gather outside their tents at the Al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, in 2021.

FILE: Children gather outside their tents at the Al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, in 2021.

(AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Syr­i­an au­thor­i­ties are still await­ing word from the T&T Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate 90 ISIS-af­fil­i­at­ed T&T na­tion­als who have been im­pris­oned in de­ten­tion camps and jails in North­east Syr­ia for more than five years.

Dur­ing a re­cent we­bi­nar, the head of the In­ter­nal Dis­placed Per­sons (IDP) and refugee of­fice for the Au­tonomous Ad­min­is­tra­tion of North and East Syr­ia Dr Sheikhmus Ahmed ap­pealed to the T&T Gov­ern­ment to com­mu­ni­cate with them to repa­tri­ate their na­tion­als, 20 of whom are chil­dren de­tained in poor liv­ing con­di­tions in the Al-Hol and Roj camps.

Some of these chil­dren who are now adults have been de­scribed as “tick­ing time bombs.”

The we­bi­nar en­ti­tled Home­ward Bound: Nav­i­gat­ing Repa­tri­a­tion and Rein­te­gra­tion of Re­turnees from Syr­ia had a pow­er­ful line-up of speak­ers, among them Let­ta Tayler, Hu­man Rights Watch as­so­ciate di­rec­tor, Dr Tim­o­thy Af­fon­so, deputy dean and lec­tur­er at the Fac­ul­ty of Law, UWI, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus and in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal lawyer from T&T Sare­ta Ashraph.

In Jan­u­ary, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said no T&T na­tion­al in Syr­ia had been repa­tri­at­ed to date, giv­ing the as­sur­ance that ef­forts to do so are on­go­ing.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so stat­ed that while the is­sue of repa­tri­a­tion has been en­gag­ing Gov­ern­ment’s at­ten­tion, it’s not a mat­ter that can be treat­ed overnight, as there is a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty el­e­ment to con­sid­er.

Last March, Row­ley es­tab­lished a three-man repa­tri­a­tion com­mit­tee head­ed by Nizam Mo­hammed to ad­vise and de­vel­op a leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy frame­work to fa­cil­i­tate and ex­e­cute the repa­tri­a­tion of na­tion­als in the con­flict zone.

In his ad­dress, Ahmed, who su­per­vis­es the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Ro­ja­va’s IDP, ad­mit­ted that his or­gan­i­sa­tion had reached out to the coun­tries whose na­tion­als were ar­rest­ed and de­tained for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing North­east Syr­ia to join ISIS.

“We call for all in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties to come to take their na­tion­als from North­east Syr­ia. And any­one or any coun­try who wants to take their na­tion­als from North­east Syr­ia, they can com­mu­ni­cate with us,” he urged.

As of June 2023, more than 14 coun­tries have repa­tri­at­ed over 2,000 of their na­tion­als from the war-torn coun­try.

Ahmed said if the T&T Gov­ern­ment wants, they could send a spe­cial email or a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to as­sist.

“And of course, in re­sponse to any re­quest. We are open to re­ceiv­ing them. And they can send their del­e­ga­tion to re­ceive their cit­i­zens,” he added.

Ahmed said the Unit­ed States ad­min­is­tra­tion has been work­ing with “the glob­al coali­tion” to con­duct tri­als against ISIS pris­on­ers who com­mit­ted crimes while at­tempts were made to re­ha­bil­i­tate the chil­dren and women who are in the camps.

He said re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion was not a fi­nal so­lu­tion.

“We will con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate with the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment. And in the end, we hope they can com­mu­ni­cate with us.”

With the Unit­ed States Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ahmed said he hoped for a na­tion­al so­lu­tion as some coun­tries have failed to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their cit­i­zens in Syr­ia.

“There are coun­tries who ig­nore them.”

Oth­ers have been repa­tri­at­ing on­ly some of their cit­i­zens.

“The num­ber is large and there is a need for a na­tion­al so­lu­tion.”

Risk of hu­man traf­fick­ing high

Ashraph who spe­cialis­es in in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and hu­man rights law spoke about the plight of women, men and chil­dren be­com­ing traf­ficked vic­tims in Syr­ia.

Un­der in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights law, Ashraph said it was im­por­tant that traf­ficked vic­tims are iden­ti­fied ear­ly to en­sure their rights and to pre­vent fur­ther re-trau­ma­ti­sa­tion.

She stat­ed that the Com­mit­tee on Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women (CEDAW) re­quires all du­ty bear­ers to es­tab­lish pro­ce­dures to iden­ti­fy pos­si­ble vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing those sus­pect­ed of as­so­ci­a­tion with or re­turn­ing from ter­ri­to­ries un­der the con­trol of the Is­lam­ic State.

“Coun­tries who have na­tion­als or per­ma­nent res­i­dents in North­east Syr­ia, such as Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so have an oblig­a­tion to iden­ti­fy vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, in­clud­ing a vic­tim where per­sons were traf­ficked from their home coun­tries for ex­am­ple, through on­line re­cruit­ment or were tak­en over by peo­ple who were de fac­to re­cruiters and to repa­tri­ate them if they wish to re­turn.”

Ashraph ex­plained that once boys be­come teenagers, they are placed in prison with adult males and traf­ficked.

ISIS, she said, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly re­cruit­ed chil­dren as young as eight years old to par­tic­i­pate in hos­til­i­ties, sui­cide mis­sions and com­bat roles.

Chil­dren are al­so put in ter­ror­ist groups.

“Of­ten they are ex­clud­ed from repa­tri­a­tion poli­cies with­out an as­sess­ment of whether they have been traf­ficked.”

These is­sues are sel­dom raised in the camps, Ashraph said, while coun­tries are not ful­fill­ing their oblig­a­tions to pro­tect chil­dren from traf­fick­ing.

Last month, she said a Yazi­di woman and her chil­dren had to be res­cued from the Al-Hol camp.

“They had been cap­tured by ISIL in an Au­gust 2014 at­tack on Sin­jar (in Iraq) and en­tered in­to a sys­tem of en­slave­ment in­clud­ing sex­u­al en­slave­ment.”

She said some women were brought in­to the camps by co­er­cive or de­cep­tive means.

“It is very un­usu­al for them to be recog­nised as traf­fick­ing vic­tims.”

In some cas­es, they are threat­ened or too fear­ful to make them­selves known to the Kur­dish forces in charge of the camps.

“We saw for ex­am­ple the traf­fick­ing of women and girls for the pur­pose of forced mar­riage and traf­fick­ing of boys to train and to fight as sol­diers.”

In some cas­es, Ashraph said, there were in­stances of Trinida­di­an women and chil­dren en­ter­ing Syr­ia through de­cep­tion.

Oth­ers went will­ing­ly and then pro­ceed­ed to en­ter the sys­tem of traf­fick­ing.

There were mul­ti­ple ways the Is­lam­ic State traf­ficked peo­ple one of which was to con­fine girls and women in guest hous­es or lock them in de­ten­tion cen­tres un­til they agreed to mar­ry some­one from a list pro­vid­ed.

The cen­tres, Ashraph said, al­ways have armed guards.

She said men would vis­it the camps and scout for women to mar­ry.

“And then it was on­ly if they agreed to mar­ry him, they could get out.”

Ashraph said it is well recog­nised in hu­man rights law that forced mar­riage is recog­nised as a slav­ery-like prac­tice which is a form of ex­ploita­tion.

If the man dies, she said, the girl or woman is re­turned to the de­ten­tion cen­tre to go through the sys­tem again be­cause the Is­lam­ic State view sin­gle women as a threat to so­ci­etal or­der.

“We al­so see pat­terns of forced mar­riage of girls be­tween 12 and 16 years.”

Ashraph said some coun­tries made a de­ci­sion not to repa­tri­ate boys over the age of 15.


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