Our CEO Maya Foa was interviewed by Arab News, for this feature about the thousands of women and children unlawfully detained in Camp Roj in North East Syria.
“Of course, I can’t say that every woman is a trafficking victim. But I’ve conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with women from many different countries, and it was remarkable how common certain stories were, revealing a pattern of how young women were groomed, seduced or coerced, with propaganda or deceit,” she told reporter Jonathan Gornall.
“There may well be people who’ve committed crimes, and our position is if that is the case then they can and should be prosecuted in British courts.
“Whether or not these women were victims of trafficking is not for me, or an NGO or lawyers to decide. It’s the government’s job. The British government has a duty to assess who is culpable and needs to be prosecuted and punished, and who might be a victim and needs help.
“Categorizing these people as victims of trafficking is a legal determination that can be made only by the state. But the UK government is not doing that. And not only is it not bringing them back to the country, it is also not even talking to them… Why is the British government not taking this opportunity to better understand the patterns that led to this situation, if only for the sake of our future security?
“There is a big debate in the UK right now about a social media ban for children. If there had been such a ban in 2014 and 2015, would Shamima Begum and many others have ended up in Syria and Iraq? I think probably not.
“Those sorts of questions are so important. Instead we are just denying this problem, exiling the individuals and outsourcing justice to another jurisdiction, where no justice will be done. That’s clearly not a responsible way to proceed.”
Read the full article in Arab News here
