Hamed Chapman
A former cabinet minister has accused the British government of abandoning Shamima Begum by stripping her of her citizenship despite knowing that she was a victim of trafficking who was smuggled into IS-controlled Syria at 15 by a Canadian intelligence agent.
The call by former International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, to “remedy its mistakes” comes as Tasnime Akunjee, the lawyer for the Begum family, has revealed that the refusal by the then Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to consider Shamima a trafficking victim when stripping her of her nationality in 2019 will be challenged at a legal hearing in November.
The failure by the British government in its duty of care also coincides with the publication of a report that British Muslims have become “second-class” citizens as a result of recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality in the wake of the Nationality and Borders Act coming onto the statutory books.
The Institute of Race Relations (IPPR) found that the targets of such powers are almost exclusively Muslims, mostly of South Asian heritage, thus embedding discrimination and creating a lesser form of citizenship.
Accusations that the UK was involved in a cover-up over the smuggling of Begum followed reports that she and two friends were trafficked into Syria by a people-smuggler who was a double agent working for both Islamic State and Canadian intelligence based upon details disclosed by award-winning journalist Richard Kerbaj in his new book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes.
“The latest revelations about security service collusion in respect of Ms Shamima Begum make alarming reading. It has been obvious from the outset that she and her foolish young friends were groomed,” said Mitchell, who is a co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficked Britons in Syria.“Ministers knew she was a trafficking victim, transported by a terrorist group, but chose to strip her of her British citizenship regardless,” he said in an article for the Daily Telegraph.
The inquiry heard that UK institutions systematically failed to prevent trafficking, that authorities failed to identify at-risk individuals, failed to notify the families of girls being groomed, and failed to prevent them from leaving the country.
“Human trafficking was a cornerstone of the ISIS state-building project. Vulnerable young women and girls were targeted and coerced or deceived into travelling. On arrival, they were locked in ‘women’s houses’ then forced into marriage, domestic servitude, and sexual slavery,” Mitchell, Tory MP for Sutton Coldfield, said.
His sentiments were echoed by former Home Secretary, David Davis, who called for the repatriation of Britons still in Syria. He said the government’s refusal was “hypocrisy”, saying ministers could have “prevented it because the person who facilitated it was in the pay of the West.”
Author of the IRR report, Frances Webber, warned that “the message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of South Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way, that ‘natives’ are.”
“While a ‘native’ British citizen, who has access to no other citizenship, can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardising his right to remain British, none of the estimated 6 million British citizens with access to another citizenship can feel confident in the perpetual nature of their citizenship,” said Webber, a retired barrister who specialised in human rights, immigration and asylum law.
But who had access to Shamima Begum and her schoolfriends? Who, what, and how influenced Shamima Begum and three other girls to leave their homes and travel to a violent and dangerous conflict zone?
Five other girls in the same year as Shamima, from the same school, were made wards of court as they were at risk of serious radicalisation.
British writer Rabina Khan is among those calling for a public inquiry into the scandal, including holding to account Tower Hamlets Council, where she was once a councillor and which was previously tasked with ensuring Begum’s wellbeing.
“Tower Hamlets Council’s Local Safeguarding Children’s Board has failed to undertake a serious case review of the circumstances surrounding the radicalisation and handling of the Bethnal Green Academy (now Mulberry Academy Shoreditch) schoolgirls (Sharmeena Begum, Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana) who travelled to Syria to join Isis,” Khan told The Muslim News.
Begum was the first to travel to Syria in December 2014, followed by three of her friends in February 2015.
In March 2015, four other female students at Bethnal Green Academy, aged 15 and 16, were also made wards of court “based on a perceived risk, not assessed as high, that the children may take steps to leave the jurisdiction and travel to a conflict zone.”
“What is alarming here is that a risk is a risk, regardless, and should have been taken more seriously,” the former Cabinet Member for Housing in Tower Hamlets Council said. She also revealed that the DfE announced that experts would review possible links to extremism at Bethnal Green Academy, yet no findings have been made public.
“This case has to be one of the biggest failures of the Prevent strategy, with no enquiry to learn lessons from the past,” she warned, believing every parent in Tower Hamlets “has the right to worry about the safety of their children in light of these glaring gaps in information.”
“We don’t know how these girls were radicalised or by whom, or whether it was strictly online, or by people in our community.”
