The three young girls who have purportedly fled to Syria

I recognise the type of family that Margaretx talks of. My D lives next door to a Muslim family. Up until the girl was 12 years old she would play in the garden with my DGD. Then out of nowhere she never came into her garden or my Ds. She just goes to school and comes home. Her 2 brothers still play out, though.

These girls are (by definition) children grannactivist but I'm sorry they are certainly not like any "children" I know or have ever known. They are fully aware of what they are doing and I do not see them as victims at all. Firstly at least one of them was known to be following a Glasgow woman on twitter who left to marry a member of ISIS in 2013, she also followed hate preacher Anjem Choudhary. Doesn't sound very childlike to me.
Secondly where did they get the money from to buy airline tickets? who paid for them? . Who booked them? One of their fathers has admitted to knowing his daughter "has very strong feelings". Also which mosque did they attend?
What if these three "innocent" young women were three bearded young Muslim men?

JessM There is no comparison at all between three potentially very dangerous young women going to Syria of their own free will and extremely vulnerable young girls being sexually exploited.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Our next door neighbours 30 years ago were Muslim and totally unlike the family you describe, 'margaretx'
Lovely people, lively daughters and we are still in touch with them today even though now we live miles apart.

I said in an earlier post that it took us a lot of effort to fill in a visa on line for Turkey this week. It costs and so does the flight out. You need a credit card. Do parents now let their children have open credit card allowances? I am very careful with money and in particular on line transactions and I'm baffled as to how these girls financed their trip. I don't think they are victims I think they are seriously at fault

Stansgran I've visited Turkey many times - currently EU citizens can obtain a tourist visa on arrival at the airport for £20.

IS would have financed it in all probability. They are very wealthy.

That's what I think too, rosequartz.

When it comes to talking about the voting age, a lot of people (myself included) feel that 16 is too young to have a reasonable grasp of what the various parties stand for and what their ultimate goals are (I know, there are probably plenty of people over the age of 16 to whom politics is a bit of a mystery but there has to be a "cut-off" somewhere).

Yet, some feel that these girls are intellectually and emotionally mature enough to be able to analyse the information which is being fed to them by those supporting ISIS and to be able to make major decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. To join the British Army a person has to be 17 years of age, with parental consent, and 18, without it (and personally I think that's still not old enough).

As to the feelings of revulsion that young British women could possibly support a murderous army of killers who commit terrible atrocities against innocent people, is it possible that these girls have been told these stories are untrue -that they are merely propaganda?

Anything is possible Eloethan but I think its highly unlikely that three young women who obviously take a keen interest in ISIS, hate preachers etc. really believe that they are all nice, decent human beings who are merely misunderstood. What would they think the vile videos were? Cartoons? Stage plays?

I agree with Eloethan.

gillybob - "they are fully aware of what they are doing".
I dont see how you can possibly say that. Even if you were their auntie.

Gillybob do I have to spell it out:
They are naive young girls who are not yet mature enough to make sensible judgements, and they have been groomed/brainwashed.

I would draw the parallel with the many under age boys who signed up in WW1, victims of propaganda just like these girls.

They may well know more than we think they do, but gillybob, you are coming out with very sure statements. Which you cant possibly back up.

"do I have to spell it out" ? How very rude and patronising. JessM
We are each entitled to our own opinion.

I think it a touch naive of you actually to think that because they are 15-16 they are walking blindly into this. No parallel/comparison between boys signing up to fight for their country in WW1. I am suprised how you can even suggest a comparison. Those young men did not see with their own eyes what they were going to. They were going to fight for the freedom of their own country. There were no videos showing them that the people they would be joining were evil, murdering, monsters.

I don't know them personally soontobe therefore my comments are not "sure" I am merely giving my opinion of three 15-16 year old Muslim girls who have left Britain for Syria in order to join ISIS. These are not three young girls who have left Britain to backpack around Thailand!

All that said. I do hope I am proved wrong.

Just back to the comparisons between these girls and those in Rochdale.

Not all the Rochdale victims were particularly vulnerable i.e. in care, abusive/neglectful parents, addicts, absent fathers, etc.

Over the last couple of years I've heard interviews on programmes such as Woman's Hour, wherein loving parents have talked about how devastated they are that their daughters were involved in such grooming and abuse, and how guilty they felt that they couldn't control the situation.

Normal, everyday working people whose daughters have, for whatever reason, been led astray.

Not all errant kids have bad parents.

What if these three "innocent" young women were three bearded young Muslim men?
I think I already answered that when I said that the teenaged muslim boy who killed my son in law was still in my eyes a child.

I have to say I admire your ability to "forgive " (not sure if forgive is the right word so apologies in advance) the murderer of you son in law grannyactivist I am not so sure I could be so generous.

Looking at the two children leading poor little Jamie Bulger to his eventual murder fills me with horror and they were clearly children who knew exactly what they were doing.

A very similar situation has happened in Canada recently. 3 young women were recruited for IS by a female on line in Western Canada. They left for Turkey and are now in Syria. The sister of a 23 year old describes her as shy, younger than her age, naive. Perhaps they think that the violence meeted out by IS is justifiable/necessary and will lead to something good?

Chillingly scary that any child is capable of such awful acts, makes me wonder just how young minds can become so corrupted and evil.

Grown adults, never mind teenagers, are seduced over the internet.

Normally-sane people send money to scammers; middle-aged women fall in love with 20-year old Tunisian boys; kind-hearted mugs send money to a couple who claim to live at Heathrow ... there's no end to naivety!

I agree Riverwalk, but when it comes to carrying out inconceivable crimes........
Am I too naive in wondering why Facebook and other websites aren't tightly monitored, or I suppose those hellbent on corrupting young and not-so-young minds always find a way.......

I agree with your post Gillybob. ISIS atrocities have been well publicised along with the substantiated testaments of their cruelty. What sort of person would want to be part of that. They break the rules of their own religion, for example Muslims are not supposed to burn dead bodies let alone a live person. Some of the foreign women recruited are given the task of spying and administering harsh punishments to the indigenous women in the city of Raqqua where many are based. Why in God's name would anyone think that would be something they wish to aspire to. The foreign Jihadis that seek to join ISIS are not carrying out magnanimous or humanitarian acts they are not aid workers, they are usurpers in a foreign land happy to collude with an extreme sect who are inflicting hell on the citizens of that country. I don't think comparisons can be drawn between young men who signed up to fight in the two World Wars or those who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War.

I agree TerriBull, and I still struggle with the idea of these girls being naive, innocent etc, etc. and unaware of what they were heading into.

Well whatever war young people volunteer for, they believe they are doing the right thing. As Absent pointed out, above, some of those who went to Spain went to fight for the fascists and some for the anti-fascists. Both lots thought they were doing the right thing. Huge numbers of Japanese and German youths thought they were doing the right thing when they volunteered in WW2. Mediaeval kings and knights were convinced they were doing the right thing when they left their lands, bankrupted their countries and went off to Palestine to try to drive out the arabs.
It's a simple equation
naive young person + propaganda -> volunteer (aka gun fodder) who is convinced they are doing the right thing.

They were surely to be forgiven for their ignorance thoughJessM given that there was no internet, no same day reporting, no graphic videos then. I stand by my previous post. You cannot compare a young man volunteering in ww1 and/or ww2 to the present day. Since then most of the world has thankfully become more civilized.