Lili-Rose is a member of the War Studies Department at King’s College, London. She wrote this piece as part of her internship with Arts4Refugees. Her motivation was to help her peer group understand the unique experiences of post-conflict communities. This article was edited by Cassia Jefferson, a fellow student journalist from Oxford University. Bernadett from Swinburne University interviewed Lili-Rose for the podcast as well.
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Al-Hawl Camp: A Purgatory With No Way Out For the Brides of ISIS?
Is the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over? Yes. Have all issues linked to the conflict vanished? No. Four years ago, the Battle of Baghuz marked the collapse of what the group called the “caliphate,” a territory, at its peak, almost as large as the United Kingdom. Following this event, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) apprehended tens of thousands of former members including men, women and children affiliated to the organisation.
A minority of women, many from the Yazidi religious community, were captured and enslaved by ISIS between 2014 and 2019. The rest, however, came voluntarily to the caliphate and married members there, earning them the designation of “brides of ISIS.” These women, along with the children they brought with them or gave birth to while in the caliphate, are currently held in refugee camps officially run by the SDF. The most famous is al-Hawl, located in north-eastern Syria, a few miles from the border with Iraq. Gathering over 60,000 individuals from 57 nationalities, 94 percent of its detainees are women and children. Though meant to be a temporary solution, over the years al-Hawl has become the symbol of a broader group governments still do not fully know what to do with.
Most of the public debate regarding these women – at least, in the West – is centred around why they chose to join ISIS, many of them at a young age, and whether they should be allowed to return to their countries of origin. This perspective, focused on state security, fails to take into account the safety of the women themselves. These women are increasingly threatened by the camp’s mechanisms and some of its members, an issue that could lead to further radicalisation and strengthen what remains of ISIS.
Women in al-Hawl are often misunderstood by the public. Apart from some exceptions, they did not join ISIS out of sympathy for the group’s acts of violence but were rather enticed by the utopia which the caliphate claimed to represent. They sought meaning, a place where they could belong and practise their religion as they saw fit. Some were also searching for an adventure, a thrill, something different from their daily lives. The reality was, of course, quite different from what they were expecting: women in the caliphate only existed as wives and mothers, completely subservient to the will of men. Those who expressed early regret are often asked why they did not leave after realising they made a mistake. The problem was that leaving ISIS was harder than it looked: many were unfamiliar with the country they were in and, most importantly, knew they would be tortured and probably killed if they were ever caught. Escape was hardly an option. All they could do was survive.
These women tend to be seen as either victims or terrorists without any middle ground. While their identities are oversimplified, they are in fact quite complex: most of them take responsibility for the choices they made but express regret. However, many do not understand why they are locked away in camps, as they did not take direct part in the mass crimes committed by ISIS. Only a small portion acknowledge that by coming to Syria and Iraq they helped strengthen the group’s legitimacy overseas. The need to be understood should not be underestimated. Without this, it is impossible to identify their needs or provide the help they desire. Without understanding the other, there can be no real communication, and the issue cannot be resolved.
It is hard for these women to make their needs and intentions clear because they have other priorities to attend to, particularly their own safety, which can hardly be achieved in al-Hawl. Malnutrition, dilapidated housing, extreme weather, regular diseases outbreaks- sources of danger are numerous. However, the greatest threat seems to come from the detainees who remain loyal to ISIS. According to estimations, they represent between 20 and 30 percent of the population in al-Hawl. Some of this number used to be members of the hisba, ISIS’s “morality police,” and still believe it is their duty to enforce the rules of the sharia. For them, the fall of the caliphate is only temporary. They regularly threaten other detainees and sometimes even kill them distancing themselves from ISIS’s ideology. In July 2019, an Azerbaijani detainee choked her own granddaughter to death because she refused to be fully covered in public and since last September, over fifty people have died.
As a result, fear spreads. The SDF, who supposedly run the camp, lack the resources to contain or alter the situation. According to a 2021 Pentagon report (linked at the end of the article), ISIS is actively present in the camp and uses it for indoctrination and recruitment purposes. The acts of intimidation earlier described help maintain the prominence of the group’s ideology in al-Hawl. This pushes many women to keep up appearances, even against their true beliefs. For this, many are judged and considered by outside actors as unrepentant. This fails to take into account how hard showing remorse would be in a camp housing over 60,000 people: group effect undeniably has an impact. These conditions can halt a transition back to the mainstream and also lead to fear, confusion and ultimately radicalisation.
As more time passes by the greater the residents’ uncertainty over receiving outside support grows. This makes it more likely that women who show regret will lose hope and go back to their former ideology as a sole means to survive, especially when they have children to take care of. Al-Hawl was meant to be a temporary solution, but it is described by several inmates as a “purgatory,” a place where they are left to face the consequences of their actions for an indefinite period of time. This is one of the main sources of torment for the women in the camp. As Shamima Begum explained in the award-winning BBC podcast “I’m Not a Monster,” “[the camp] is worse than a prison sentence because at least with a prison sentence, you know that there will be an end, but here you don’t know if there’s going to be an end.” A great number of women claim they would have preferred to die in the caliphate rather than live in al-Hawl. The idea that one does not have a future can lead to desperation, something the remaining elements of ISIS seek to exploit in the camps. Without safety nor hope, women are left with no choice but to submit to this influence, leaving behind hopes of autonomy and self-determination in the future.
This, of course, depends on whether they are – and feel – likely to go home. Foreign detainees are allowed to return to their countries depending on their government’s position. While such cases often make the headlines, it should be noted that they only make up 20 percent of the population at al-Hawl, a much smaller proportion compared to the 46.5% Iraqi and 33.5% Syrian residents, according to UN figures.
The Iraqi government has shown willingness to repatriate some of its nationals by transferring them to the camp of Jeddah-1 in northern Iraq. Since 2021, this initiative has managed to bring home over 5,500 civilians. After being held for a few months, detainees are meant to be released and brought back into society, but obstacles still lie ahead: women fear stigmatisation, tribal rejection and potential reprisals from the rest of the population. Even when freed, many do not picture a future for themselves or their children who will remain long if not forever impacted by their lives in the camp.
Though a work in progress, the Iraqi initiative is work nonetheless. The same cannot be said for Syrian detainees for whom rehabilitation remains near impossible in a country torn by civil war, where actors do not necessarily see them as a priority.
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