Bring her home
“Shoot her” “She went out there with her eyes wide open” “ She’s cold and heartless” “She’s an adult now” “I don’t even believe she had a baby” “ She made her bed, let her lay in it” “She’s dead behind the eyes” “Bring the baby back but keep her there”
These are only some of the comments I have seen about Shamima Begum. Since this story has come out I have been debating and discussing this with friends and family and every time we come to the conclusion that, she should be allowed to come home. I want to share my opinion on this issue to help people think of the bigger picture.
I’m not dismissing that this is a very serious matter and very emotive, however nothing rational comes from heightened emotion, so let’s take this bit by bit.
A lot of people/media are saying that a 15 year old isn’t a child. In actual fact a 15 year old is an adolescent, who needs pastoral care- essential at this stage of development. This makes sense as the law states that children must get an education between the school term after their 5th birthday and the last Friday in June in the school year they turn 16.
verywellfamily.com stated:
“There's a good chance that your 15-year-old will think she's ready to take on the world now. And she may insist she already knows everything. That know-it-all attitude with a hint of rebellion can be par for the course for 15-year-olds.”
I definitely know what that “know-it-all-attitude” is like from seeing it in my sister, then in me. Which I’m sure you can all relate to. So now that we have established that a 15 year old is a child and also that we were little nightmares in our adolescent years then let's move on to the external factors.
Muslim hate crime is real. Whilst in London I was actually trapped in a tube carriage with the EDL (English Defence League) members, and I was there at Southbank when two EDL fanatics hung a very racist and nonsensical banner off the Southbank centre that read “F_ _ _ K ISIS, F_ _ _ K Muslims, Free Tommy”. My friends and I were disgusted by this, but not shocked. We were more shocked at the fact that they wanted to portray so much hate yet didn’t even spell the swearword. My point is, even I have witnessed hatred against muslims living in my proverbial bubble.
In 2014 BBC reported “Muslim hate crime rises 65% in London” where most of those attacks targeted women wearing traditional Islamic clothing. Given that statistic you can begin to (although it’s difficult) understand how Shamima could’ve fallen into radical company and might have become besotted by an older man that spoke to her on an emotional level which he and others would have taken advantage of- known as “grooming”. Which is used as the opportune moment to start the process of radicalising.
NSPCC spoke about Shamima’s story and said:
“The NSPCC is clear that radicalisation is a form of child abuse, and that it is essential we understand the failures in the system that contributed to her radicalisation as a 15-year-old to prevent other children from taking this route”.
Now let’s attempt to paint the picture now that we grasped that:
this 15-year-old girl was living in a city where hate crime rose while she was growing up,
her mum and dad were scared and she over heard them talk about it.
She found her “tribe” that she felt was a protection.
Now we understand this, we can move on to her child marriage. You know, the thing us westerners like to be snooty about and say “ew that is so disgusting, thank god it doesn’t here” Yes child marriage, it’s very much illegal here in the U.K. so why are we not protecting her solely on that? People/ the media love to call her the ISIS bride, how about Child from U.K. Trafficked and Radicalised now a Child Bride to ISIS Member- if we want to be factual about this whole thing. How do you feel when you read the latter? It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, because that’s called empathy, which our government and media lacks in. From wars, colonisation, sexism, racism I could go on. Shamima is a child bride and was groomed into following ISIS, even if she says she loved being there, she doesn’t regret it etc etc, Stockholm syndrome? Manipulation? Abuse? Rochdale grooming ring? Protecting herself and her baby, after losing two babies within a year?
Think about it.