In the Kurdish autonomous region of Rojava, in North Eastern Syria, the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps hold family members of ISIS fighters and individuals displaced by the fighting between ISIS and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Much has been written about the 60,000-plus camp residents, mostly women and children, ever since the UK media’s discovery that Shamima Begum was among them. A teenager when she left London in 2014 to join ISIS, the question of whether the government should allow Begum's return provoked a fierce public debate and resulted in an order in 2019 to revoke her British citizenship. The camps include both victims and supporters of the jihadis, leading to challenges in decision-making around how to deal with them. Some of the ISIS women have killed fellow residents for failing to follow strict dress codes, turning sections of the camps into no-go areas for the SDF guards.
But we have heard hardly anything about the rehabilitation of boys, teenagers and young men who had been groomed by ISIS to become the new generation of fighters. When they were captured on the battlefields by SDF, males between the ages of 10 and 18 were sent to the Huri Youth Detention Centre. Set up in 2017, the centre holds 80 male children and teenagers, mostly Syrian and Iraqi nationals, with a small number of foreign nationals. The Syrian and Iraqi nationals have been tried and convicted and are serving their sentence at the centre. The foreign youngsters are in limbo because Rojava is still unsuccessfully demanding that they be repatriated to their countries of origin.
Despite their young age, these are dangerous boys. Living under ISIS, children were deliberately desensitised – exposed to public hangings, decapitated heads on spikes, and videos of executions in the public square and the internet. Boys from the ages of 8-15 were also given training in armed combat, executions, suicide missions and the Islamic faith, as understood by ISIS. Much energy was invested in these young boys as they were seen as an insurance policy against international attempts to obliterate the organisation.
It is difficult to visit Rojava at this time. But according to the staff at the centre, and a report from the Rojava Information Centre (RIC) – a news agency founded by foreign volunteers in Rojava who have collaborated with news agencies like the BBC and CNN to provide foreign journalists with news about the autonomous region – Huri Centre could provide a model for successful rehabilitation. This is no easy task, particularly given the challenge of extremely limited resources.
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The first unusual tactic was to staff the centre with women. This was based on the same principle adopted by the Kurdish forces with the YPJ women’s protection units. Putting women on the frontline during the war was effective, because ISIS believed that if one of their fighters were killed by a woman, they wouldn’t go to heaven. The democratic commune of Rojava is founded on principles of gender equality, so women had an equal say in the adoption of this battlefield tactic.
According to staff, when the young men first enter Huri Centre, they tend to refuse to make eye contact with the women, shake their hands, answer their questions or engage with them in class, because they have learnt that it is shameful to be taught by women and that it is against their religion. Eventually, however, they reach a point of acceptance and even appreciation: if the teachers are absent, for example, the students will want to know where they were. The philosophy underpinning the rehabilitation is not to take on ISIS ideology head-on, but to build a democratic culture through everyday interactions and the ways in which the Centre is run. In fact, religion is considered too sensitive a subject to broach directly.
Take the story of Ahmad (not his real name). An Egyptian national, now 20 years old, Ahmad was brought up by his fundamentalist Islamic father to believe that mixing between men and women was forbidden, a belief which would have been reinforced during his time with ISIS. Ahmad was 12 and still in school in Saudi Arabia, when his father, who was working there as a telecommunications engineer, responded to the call to fight a holy jihad. The whole family, including his three brothers and mother, was uprooted and moved to Syria.
While his father started work as an ISIS administrator in Raqqa, Ahmad was enrolled in a Shari’a school and recruited to join ISIS as a “cub”. Ahmad’s father was then sent on a mystery mission to Mosul. There, he was killed by ISIS because they found that his behaviour was in contravention to their laws and commands. He had come to believe that ISIS were in violation of true Islam. Despite his family's suffering, Ahmad fought in several battles alongside ISIS after his father’s death, often playing the role of lookout and guard. He was captured in the battle of Tabqa in 2017. He was 16 years old.
When Ahmad first came to the centre, he was an introverted, anxious and apprehensive child. He would not accept his new situation. He was crushed by the defeat of ISIS. Gradually, supervisors and teachers at the centre were able to make him more cooperative. His introversion was reversed by making him a supervisor of various committees. According to staff, he became receptive to others and now avoids quarrels with his friends, takes an interest in his lessons and participates in discussions. The centre wrote, in an email to me, that Ahmad “became a young man and spent his adolescence in the centre, which was not a normal stage for him and for the other children. But he repeatedly asks, how long will I remain in the centre? What is my fate? When will I meet my family?”
The centre is a prison, but staff say they go to great lengths to ensure that it does not feel like one to boys and young men like Ahmad. Although the residents cannot leave the centre, they can move around it freely. According to a report produced by the Rojava Information Centre, Hidden Battlefields: Rehabilitating ISIS Affiliates and Building a Democratic Culture in Their Former Territories, staff adopt a "soft and respectful" approach towards the youngsters so that they don’t feel like they are in a prison being watched over by guards.
The report says the boys are kept busy with classes in the morning on reading, writing, arts and sciences. In the afternoon, there are creative activities, sports and practical training to prepare them for life after detention. They are taught sewing, handicrafts and learning to play a musical instrument. Besides the dormitories, where the young men live in small groups, the centre includes a classroom, a barber’s, an outdoor sports ground and a garden.
The curriculum could not be more different from the one in the schools run by ISIS where the focus was the Q’uran, Q’uran, Q’uran. They had banned subjects that could “inspire depravity” such as art, music, social studies, history, and philosophy. These were substituted by Islamic law and jurisprudence. All photographs and drawings were removed from the classroom and textbooks were rewritten with information drawn from the Q’uran. Only maths, of all the sciences, was retained. Keeping a beady eye on the need for global marketing, ISIS also retained the teaching of English language but not literature.
At Huri Centre, the staff say they aim to foster a peaceful atmosphere to counter the turbulence and chaos of life under ISIS where violence was random and unpredictable. Staff eat with the children and share the same food, which comes as a shock to teenagers who are used to the hierarchical and authoritarian structures under ISIS in which senior members got privileges like better food. The fact that the young people can shape the curriculum by expressing their desire to learn more about a certain subject is another instance of democracy in action. According to staff quoted in the report, issues are resolved through discussion, not punishment. The report quotes Sara Efrin, co-chair of the centre, who says that, in this way, children learn “how to solve problems without violence”. Apparently conflicts have been resolved without any major incidence of violent behaviour so far.
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It has proved more of a challenge to rehabilitate foreign nationals, as compared to their Syrian and Iraqi counterparts. The latter were more likely to have joined ISIS as a result of poverty. According to a Human Rights Watch report, children could be paid as much as $100 per month. The foreign nationals were more ideologically driven and therefore more resistant to the deradicalisation programme. According to Ms Efrin, Co-chair of the Centre, who is quoted in the RIC report, “the children from the West are usually stronger believers and followers of ISIS, and it takes longer for them to let go of this extreme mindset and start making improvements”.
However, some progress has apparently been made. The RIC report quotes a 17-year-old US national, “I like it here. It’s better than before. We can play football, we learn new things here, we have good classes, it’s much better. The people treat me well. I get to speak to my mom sometimes. I got to visit my mom [in Hol camp] once. She is happy that I’m continuing to learn and study.” He is learning to play the piano, an activity that would definitely have been considered haram by ISIS.
Regular visits are also organised in the opposite direction with women from the camps being brought to see their children at the centre. Others are allowed to call their families twice a week. They may be in "prison" but they experience more freedom than they did under ISIS, who maintained an authoritarian grip on every aspect of their lives.
What the staff are struggling with is a lack of expertise on trauma counselling. They are mainly teachers who are learning from trial and error; their overall goal is to return to these youngsters the childhood that was stolen by ISIS and to see them as victims not villains. In order to meet this challenge, more centres like the Huri Youth Detention Centre are needed. At present, it’s the only one of its kind, and plans for setting up more have been stymied due to lack of funding.
The Supreme Court’s rejection of Shamima Begum’s application to return to the UK to fight her case for citizenship appears to have sealed the fate of all British ISIS fighters held in Syria. However, there is no reason why the government cannot provide material support to these detainees, or offer psychological, social, and legal expertise to existing rehabilitation initiatives.
The boys and young men at Huri Centre were intended to be the next generation of jihadis. The careful grooming of child soldiers reflects ISIS’s bid for longevity, if not eternity. This is precisely why the west, if not prepared to repatriate those children, should provide funding and resources for the Kurdish regime and their rehabilitation programs.
