Shamima Begum May Have Been “Trafficked To Syria”, Her Lawyers Claims

Shamima Begum trafficked? She could have been a victim of trafficking when she left the UK, her lawyers told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) on Friday. In February 2015, Begum left the country and travelled to Syria along with two other girls allegedly to join Islamic State.

In 2019, she was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp following which then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped Begum of her British citizenship on national security grounds. Shamima Begum, who is now 21, is challenging the removal of her British citizenship. Last week, she said that her choice of joining ISIS was a “mistake” and she was a “dumb kid”.

Recently, her legal team argued that there is “overwhelming evidence” that she may have been a “trafficked child for sexual exploitation”. Shamima Begum’s lawyers also argued that the Home Office had a legal duty to investigate whether she was a victim of trafficking when her citizenship was revoked.

At the time Begum left UK “the counter-terrorism unit had suspicions of coercion and control” which “gives rise to the need to investigate the issue of trafficking” argued Samantha Knights QC.

Additionally, the legal team said in written submissions that the Home Office failed to consider whether she was “a child trafficked to, and remaining in, Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage”.

Currently, Shamima Begum is held in the al-Roj camp in northern Syria run by the Syrian Democrat Forces (SDF).

Knights informed that Begum is “in a fundamentally unsafe environment” in the camp and that the 21-year-old is “living in a situation of serious and present danger”.

Meanwhile, representative of the Home Office David Blundell QC said that Begum should “not be permitted to amend her grounds again”.  “Ms Begum was trafficked, but rather that she ‘may have been’ trafficked,” he asserted in his written submission that the allegation is not that.

Who is Shamima Begum?

At the age of 15, Shamima Begum alongwith two east London schoolgirls fled to Syria to join the terror group. Later she married one of its fighters, a Dutch-born Yago Riedijk. According to BBC, she was found in a Syrian refugee camp two years ago. Begum, nine months pregnant, lost her baby to pneumonia. She was born to Bangladeshi parents in England. Reportedly, Begum ran away from London to supposedly bring back Sharmeena Begum, a friend who had travelled there in 2014.