Shamima Begum

A child at 15, I was working earning my living at 15.....

Lemsip The fact that you were at work at 15, doesn't mean that you were not emotionally and physically still a chi;d.

Following your logic, three year olds who worked in mines in the mid 19th century were not children because they were working

M0nica

This girl was 15 when she ran away to what she probably thought was going to be a romantic marriage to a handsome fighter and happiness ever after. However when she gotto Iraq life was not what she expected, but she was trapped. if she tried to escape she would be killed, as a woman she had to do everything she was told to do, or again risk death. She had three children before she was 19, all of whom died within a few months of birth.

yes, she has done dreadfl tings, but did she do them willingly? She said many foolish things after ISIl collapsed, but she was living in refugee camps dominated by female groups who as adults joined and supported ISIL. Has anyone thought what would have happened to her if she had refused, or shown revulsion?

I have 15 yer old grand daughter. I hope she is more sensible, but in this country, almost daily 15 year olds run away from home, a girl her age was posted missing local to me only this week. Who knows who she is with, where she has gone. now in the UK, the likelyhood is that she will be back home within a week a sadder and wiser gitl. Shamima, because she ran away to Iraq, neve rhad that chance.

I believe that her passport should be returned to her, she should be extradited to the UK and put on trial here. Serve her sentence and then return to her family, older and much wiser. Thesecurity services will need to monitor her, ut essentially she is a 15 year old child who made a bad mistake, one that a number of girls her age, from all communities make, but while they usually quickly end back home, she went abroad to somewhere where once there she was trapped. I do not condone her actions, but I feel deeply sorry for the 15 year old she was.

I agree with you...

I think people would be much more ready to forgive her if she was not muslim and that saddens me greatly

She is not the first to be stripped of citizenship, there have been others. I remember there was one young mum with 2 children with no criminal convictions.

It should never be allowed to happen.

By stripping her citizenship she has lost the protection of UK law so the fact that she was groomed, raped (by uk law standards) and 3 babies died due to lack of proper medical care habe been disregarded. The fact that this young girl needs serious mental health help and her apparent lack of empathy is very likely a trauma response.... Then gets disregarded. The fact that she has survived where others in her situation met a brutal end has been disregarded. Look jow easily that smoke and mirrors trick was acheived through the press.

We have let her down. This should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. We have safeguarding in place where any organisation that works with children is trained to spot the signs of grooming just as they are tained to spot other kinds of abuse, and it is abuse. What jas happened to her was abuse of a minor by adults.

She has been scapegoated and publicised as a means to an end, stripping citizenship from innocent parties.... it is all about the racism and bigotry, it always is, because a white, christian teen in a similar position would not be treated the same way.

Exactly Monica who are we to judge
We don’t know any facts we don’t know what she was told to say what she was brainwashed into saying or what she really thought She lost her three babies and a husband what would that do to anyones head
No one knows what went on in her head or what she had to do or say to survive We will maybe have a clearer idea if she was back with her family but I think a young person would say anything to keep in with the chosen husband she most likely had NO choice
Yes she chose wrong and probably has PTSD which can often bring on a total shut down of emotions

lemsip

A child at 15, I was working earning my living at 15.....

We either have the concept of children or we don't. If we do, we accept that below the age of majority people are in need of protection from those who might harm them, and in need of guardians who are responsible for them, and who can make legal decisions on their behalf. They are also subject to different laws, with restrictions put on their right to do things for which they are not considered sufficiently mature (eg marriage or borrowing money), and they are not full citizens with a vote. There are separate facilities in prisons, and different sentencing recommendations for children, too.

If we don't believe in the concept of children, then shouldn't all legal restrictions and protections be abolished?

Whatever happens to her I hope it does in a country far far away.

The current legal hourly wage for 16 and 17 year olds is £4.81. When I first worked I earned just over £2 an hour
There are also ristrictions on hours worked and breaks for 15 year olds.

The idea that that is earning a living that could fully support a teenager to be self sufficient is a ridiculous one.

You also really really dont want to decide that children are the same as adults because they at times have worked. Thinking through the implications of that are horrifying.

Seems many are forgetting she said the Manchester bombing was "justified"

Growstuff,
Absent, unaffected, PTSD, fazed, but not upset, unhappy,
tearfull, remorsefull, frightened. She had lived in a violent
world, lost her babies, bullied less fortunate women and yet
it seems to pass her by and she just wants to return to her
previous home.
I don't agree with the death sentence but living in France and
seeing innocent people murdered in the last few years makes
me think along different lines now.

I'm no expert but isn't it widely acknowledged that people who are abused can go on to develop personality disorders? It in no way excuses anything but is an explanation

I don’t believe in the death penalty although I have to be honest and admit there have been some crimes that have caused me to waver in my belief that it’s wrong. However, this isn’t the case with Ms Begum. Whilst I don’t wish her to face the death penalty I don’t agree with all the apologists on here.

She wasn’t a child and she stated she was happy over there. Happy with the murders, tortures and rapes of children as young as nine. Also the slave markets. The hell that was visited upon those people by the likes of her is, frankly, beyond anything I can comprehend.

No, let her stay there.

Hmmm, I really am 50/50 on this. Part of me thinks but she was a child, she was groomed but part of me thinks is she still brainwashed to the fact of causing mayhem if she is allowed to return.

Im certainly not clear cut on a decision....

Whichever way I and others look on it, it is a sad situation...

Saying she wasnt a child is pretty much the same to me as saying a chair is actually a pizza. Its utterly meaningless.

espee she and her family are British citizens I know hers was revoked I m not sure how legal that was but she should come to her own country which is here
I would think anyone who has been brainwashed from at least the age of 15, who knows what went on before that will say and do whatever they are told to it will be second nature She will have closed downs all emotions and empathy many years ago
I believe some child murderers like Mary Smith have gone on to lead productive lives
We have to be able to move forward in certain circumstances or we just descend into being as bad as those we despise

She will, at least, get a trial.

Which is more than she, her chums, and fellow believers gave to those they captured.

No sympathy.?

A 15 year old is a child, its a fact. It doesn't matter if lemsip was at work and I'd had a baby at 15. A 15 year old is a child. I'm looking at one at the moment, he's definitely a child. His Mum has to wash his clothes and remind him to have a bath and tidy his room and help him with his school work, take him to school, take him to clubs. He has teddy bears on his bedroom windowsill. He's a child. Believe it or not, even in loving stable families we often have no idea who our children are talking to online even if try to educate them of the dangers.

Quite right lemsip.
If ISIS hadn't been defeated she would still be there supporting them. It's only because they lost that she wants to come home.
She gets no sympathy from me.

That’s pure supposition sharon you have no idea nor do any of us
You don’t need to give sympathy it’s about proper justice
Thankfully most on this thread can ‘see it’ and are not of the hang ‘em brigade or as my American friend told me describing her husband ‘he says shoot first ask questions after’ I disliked that man intensely although I never met him

Beckett

Seems many are forgetting she said the Manchester bombing was "justified"

well said

She was a child when she left the UK but she isn't a child now. Nobody knows what her beliefs are but the fact that she thinks the Manchester bombing was justified says a lot about her.
Many innocent people one only 8 years old was killed by people with beliefs that she may still possess.
Does anyone want to take the risk of a possibly dangerous terrorist back on our streets.

sharon103

Quite right lemsip.
If ISIS hadn't been defeated she would still be there supporting them. It's only because they lost that she wants to come home.
She gets no sympathy from me.

How do you know that? You don't know what's been going through her mind.

AGAA4

She was a child when she left the UK but she isn't a child now. Nobody knows what her beliefs are but the fact that she thinks the Manchester bombing was justified says a lot about her.
Many innocent people one only 8 years old was killed by people with beliefs that she may still possess.
Does anyone want to take the risk of a possibly dangerous terrorist back on our streets.

I'd rather she were in a British prison or being watched by UK security forces than being allowed to live in refugee camps with other people with grudges or another country where she could potentially be the centre of a really dangerous group.

tickingbird you are entirely misusing the word "apologist".

Especially when your statement is basically "I dont agree with the death penalty but"

15 is legally a child in the UK and at the moment she was (somehow) allowed to leave the country she was an innocent minor.

I think apologist better applies to those who agree we havent let down minor child at the point of innocence and allowed her to be taken and reprogrammed by a corrupt regime.

Lets not forget we allow that to happen to innocent children in our own country and the sheer amount of children who have sufferred abuse and not been believed or supported or even acknowledged unless the result is death.

I find it very strange that the people who want SB to stay in Syria are sometimes the same people who want to send immigrants who commit crimes here, back to their country of origin. It seems we British take responsibility for no-one.