In June, the Iraqi government has performed another round of repatriations from #AlHol. In my latest, I explore the issue of stigma and the Key points: 1. The 50% of Al Hol residents are children, most of whom do not exceed the age of twelve years, continue to be exposed to forceful indoctrination and IS-inspired violence, and critical protection gaps exist across all sectors. 2. The obstacles encompassing repatriation processes to Iraq remain significant including including risks of violence and the lack of adequate preparations in terms of safety, lodging, economic needs, and social reintegration. 3. The attitude towards Al-Hol children is marked by ostracism both at the official and community levels. These perceptions force severe stigmatization and a high risk for children of becoming victims of secondary violence by communities, law enforcement, and military forces following their return, and inhibit and prevent social reintegration. 4. Since no attempt has ever been made to isolate extremists from IDPs, refugees, and victims of ISIS crimes, including minorities or ethnic groups, in Al Hol, all children bear the long-lasting shame and stigma of ISIS proximity, whether this perception of proximity is accurate or not. 5. Paradoxically, the same policies that discourage the return of families, the social, economic, and political ostracization, exacerbate factors that contribute to extremism.

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“Abandon all hope, you who enter here” was the haunting inscription that
Dante read as Virgil led him through the gates of Hell. It was Good Friday,
1300. Dante had lost his path and, though he realizes the peril, is now unable
to return. As the poet descends into the nine circles of torment, he witnesses
the suffering of damned souls with repugnance and pity. These, constantly
afflicted by wounds, plagued and diseased, burning with fire, submerged in
a river of boiling blood, spending the eternity gnawing on the heads of their
imprisoners. Even today, when the theology and politics of late medieval
Florence seem so remote, Dante´s magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, still
resonates and remains vivid. In the Al Hawl Camp. With its suffering,
forsakenness, and desperation, a hypothesis of Dante´s early contemplation
of the Al-Hawl finds plausibility.
The Al-Hawl Camp, which has gained a reputation as the most dangerous place
on Earth, is an open wound left by Syria’s 12-year conflict. Historically, Al
Hawl was established by the United Nations to host refugees from Iraq in
1991. In 2016, it was reopened by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF) to harbor civilians displaced in the course of operations against the
Islamic State (ISIS/Daesh) in Eastern Syria. The camp´s demographics
however, changed dramatically as the caliphate collapsed. After the fall of
Baghouz, the camp received an influx of 64,000 women and children of
Syrian, Iraqi and third-country nationality. The end of the territorial
caliphate did not only increase sixfold the camp´s population but also
coincided with a change in the function and nature of Al Hawl, from a
refugee camp to an open-air prison, with security and living conditions
becoming increasingly unsustainable over the years.
The 50% of Al Hawl residents are children, most of whom do not exceed the
age of twelve years, who were brought by their ISIL-affiliate parents to Syria
and Iraq, were born into ISIL-occupied areas, or even within the confines of
Al Hawl itself. However, the Al-Hawl is no place for children. Overcrowding,
latrine overflow, sewage leaking, lack of adequate infrastructure, potable
water, or regular food delivery are only a few of the persistent issues
affecting them, and critical gaps continue to exist across all sectors. The site
is characterized by an alarming prevalence of death, crime, and violence. To
date, over 450 children have died in Al Hawl, drowning in sewage pits,
perishing in tent fires, being fatally struck by water trucks, dying of
preventable diseases, hypothermia, and delays in accessing urgent medical
care.
In late 2019, US military officials evaluated that ISIS had been militarily
defeated but not eliminated, and the Al Hawl, ever since considered the last
surviving pocket of Daesh, stood as a cautionary tale of its resurgence.
Unhealthy prison environments can create or amplify conditions conducive
to radicalization and terrorism. In many respects, Al Hawl mirrors Camp
Bucca, a heavily populated and inadequately managed US detention center
in Iraq that gained notoriety as a ´jihadist university´ and as a breeding
ground for the insurgency of top ISIS leaders, including Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi. Al Hawl is also seen by some commentators as part of a deliberate
ISIS strategy of survival. Allegedly, Baghdadi himself ordered ISIS females to
surrender en masse to the SDF in 2019. Whether this is true or not, pro-ISIS
women seek to replicate the caliphate rule within Al Hawl, and the site is
both an echo chamber and an incubator for its violent ideology.
Children are central to ISIS´ military strategy and purposes to self-
perpetuation. At the height of ISIS, in areas under its control in Syria and
Iraq, children were forced to attend ISIS-administered schools and
indoctrinated to its imposed Salafi-Jihadi curriculum, reflecting ideological
precepts and military training. The tens of thousands of interned children in
Al-Hawl continue to be exposed to the same degree of forceful
indoctrination and IS-inspired violence. Pro-ISIS elements recruit,
radicalize, and abuse children in Al Hawl. Children are forbidden from
accessing education services and are instead imparted lessons on jihadi
ideology and weapon training, instigated to perpetrate acts of violence and
crimes to avenge the deaths of their ISIS-militant fathers, and adolescent
boys are forced into marriages or sexually exploited to serve ISIS
expansionistic aims. The longer children remain, the higher the risk they
adhere to ISIS under duress or by choice. However, going home poses its
own set of challenges.
The Kurdish-led authority in north-east Syria, international bodies, and
security and child protection experts alike have been urging states to
repatriate their nationals from the camp for years. However, as the dire
situation for children in Al Hawl lingers on, the political stand against
repatriation remains replete with legal, ethical, and practical questions with
respect to obligations and capabilities of handling a child returnee
contingent, and many have nowhere else to go.
The Iraqi government, whose nationals make up the highest proportion of Al
Hawl foreign nationals, has recently performed another round of
repatriations, a move praised by the international community and Iraqi
authorities alike as a vital effort fostering humanitarian principles, stability,
and security.
Iraq’s willingness to confront the issue of repatriations represents an
important opportunity to make headway on addressing the protracted Al
Hawl crisis. However, the obstacles encompassing repatriation processes
remain significant, including the risks of violence and the lack of adequate
preparations in terms of safety, lodging, economic needs, and social
reintegration. In addition, Iraq has endured cycles of warfare, a massive
refugee crisis, sectarianism, violent extremism, the COVID-19 health and
economic crises, regional and global power competition, and the early
impacts of climate change. As a result, the social and political landscape
remains highly vulnerable and volatile. In these conditions, an unstructured
repatriation process will likely engender adverse ramifications for safety,
security, and child rights and put increased strain on institutions.
Another key issue affecting the return of children is the perception of Al-
Hawl residents and grievances. The attitude towards Al-Hawl children is
marked by ostracism both at the official and community levels, as they are
perceived as an implicit threat and a source of danger rather than as victims
of ISIS violence in their own right or non-responsible for the choices of their
parents and relatives.
These perceptions force severe stigmatization and a high-risk for children of
becoming victims of secondary violence by communities, law enforcement,
and military forces following their return, and inhibit and prevent social
reintegration. While there is little data available on the reintegration
transitions of Al-Hawl returnees through Jeddah-1 camp, the experience of
Iraqi families with perceived ISIL affiliation displaced within Iraq
demonstrates that return to their communities is oftentimes hindered by
security actors and challenged by community rejection. The intensity of the
attitude towards the return of children and their mothers reduced once the
government started to pay compensation to the victims of ISIS crimes.
However, this does not mean that they enjoy acceptance. Rather, it means
that another form of stigmatization and alienation is evolving.
These sentiments have been simmering for years. The Iraqi community and
civil society leaders flagged adverse conditions for Iraqis in al-Hawl as early
as 2016, when the camp was mostly unheard of and had a smaller
population. At that time, the perception was that they were either Sunni
Arabs who fled from the clutches of ISIS or Iraqi armed forces fearing of
becoming targets. However, following the military defeat of ISIS in Baghouz,
while there existed ambiguity regarding the association of these Iraqis with
ISIS, a prevailing perception emerged that anyone in Al Hawl was linked to
the group or accepted to live under its rule.
As the camp became infamous as an ISIS-dominated site, some vivid realities
became neglected. Largely overlooked was the fact that the population of Al-
Hawl extends beyond ISIS militants. It is a complex mosaic, encompassing
radicalized and non-radicalized elements, perpetrators and victims of Daesh
crimes, bystanders, and those who, forcibly or not, have lived under ISIS
rules. No attempt has ever been made to isolate extremists from IDPs,
refugees, and victims of ISIS crimes, including minorities or ethnic groups —
who are mainly Syrians and Iraqis — who were the original inhabitants of the
camp before the fall of Baghouz. The lack of categorization not only led to an
inauspicious forced cohabitation but virtually condemned every child in Al-
Hawl to bear the long-lasting shame and stigma of ISIS proximity, whether
this perception of proximity is accurate or not, and risk creating a
generation that is worse than the first ISIS version.
Children born into the ISIS milieu, regardless of the circumstances, are
exposed to forms of collective punishment, whether due to the actions of
their family members or their perceived association with a terrorist
organization. In most areas of Iraq, a de facto ban on returns is imposed to
crack down on those who some clans, authorities, local communities, or the
Popular Mobilization Forces believe were sympathetic to ISIS or had a
relative affiliated with or cooperating with ISIS. In 2019, in Garma, north-
east of Fallujah, authorities issued official documents labeled with the
inscription “ISIS member” thereon, effectively subjecting children and their
mothers to harassment, stigmatization, and constant fear of reprisal and
violence. In other governorates, return is allowed on the condition that
children, irrespective of their age, are abandoned. Any family sheltering
such a child is to be banished.
The absence of proper civil documentation intensifies the difficulties
surrounding the prospects of child repatriation and reintegration. Most Al
Hawl children are unregistered, lack birth certificates and nationality
documents. Children without these documents are at high risk of being
sentenced to a life on the margins of Iraqi society — giving rise to a neglected
generation incapable of traveling between Iraqi cities and towns, barred
from attending formal schools and obtaining educational certificates, and
deprived of essential health care or state social welfare programs. Failing to
address this issue prior to their transition into adulthood poses further
challenges, as these children may risk being denied having their marriages
legally recognized, acquiring ownership or rental rights to property, or
having a fair chance at formal employment.
The experience of violent extremism, whether as victims, perpetrators,
supporters, or bystanders, causes major trauma. Psychological distress can
make it difficult for children to process and verbalize their experiences,
especially when they fear adverse reactions. Continuous insecurity may
exacerbate post-traumatic stress disorder in children, as the absence of
permanence and a sense of safety prevents them from metabolizing the
events they have witnessed.
Under these difficult psychological and living conditions, children are at risk
of being exploited or becoming tools in the hands of violent parties.
Protracted displacement, child welfare and mental health needs, injustice,
social exclusion, and the inability to access education or employment
opportunities exacerbate extreme adversity and grievances. Vulnerabilities
on which ISIS so well capitalizes. To some, the appeal of engaging in violent
extremism is then more acceptable, but for many others, it is the only
chance for survival.
Iraq has adopted a series of plans, established various mechanisms, and
formulated ambitious targets to raise the level of child protection. In
general, there are no special services rendered to the children born to
families perceived to be associated with ISIS or needs assessments of this
group, which suffers from special circumstances requiring tailored
intervention strategies. Paradoxically, the same policies that discourage the
return of families, the social, economic, and political ostracization, and the
communal and institutional attempts at De-ISIS-fication exacerbate factors
that contribute to extremism and the very threats that the government seeks
to combat.
The children have no choice about their upbringing, yet inevitably bear the
consequences. Trapped in a world of lack, stigma and despair, while we label
these children as lost, damaged and irreparable, ISIS embraces them. Its
intention to prioritize them as a vehicle to propagate dogma and conflict
through future generations then lives on, and the Daesh child lab dream
remains fulfilled.
A conversation with an 11-year-old Iraqi boy in Al Hawl. His father had died
some years prior. His mother had passed away because of illness. He and his
six siblings were on their own, trying to survive in the camp. The boy had
only one dream: to return to Iraq. To return to the places his mother had told
him about. To have a life worth living. Eleven years old. Better no life, than
this life — he said.
Eventually, Dante and Virgil reach the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and
travel from there out of Hell and back onto Earth. They emerge from Hell on
Easter morning, just before sunrise.
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