Shamima Begum, a former British citizen who made headlines in 2019 as an "ISIS bride" after pleading to return to the UK to give birth to her son, has lost her appeal against the UK Home Office's decision to revoke her citizenship. Begum, who is of Bangladeshi origin and was born in London, joined the Islamic State at the age of 15 and married an IS fighter. She had three children, all of whom have since died. She surfaced at the al-Roj refugee camp in northeast Syria in 2019, where she has been held since.
Begum's lawyers argue that the decision will leave her "de-facto stateless" and that she is a victim of child trafficking. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) found that there was a "credible suspicion" that Begum was a victim of trafficking to Syria and that various state bodies in the UK had breached their duties in allowing her to leave the country. However, the Commission rejected Begum's appeal on the grounds that it had no power to override the Home Secretary's decision, even if the case was found to be in her favor.
The decision could potentially become a landmark ruling, according to Harjap Singh Bhangal, a prominent UK lawyer and immigration law expert. He believes that "millions of British citizens whose parents have migrated from abroad before them are eligible to have their citizenship stripped if the government sees them as a national threat."
Begum has been held in the Roj camp for internationally displaced persons in northern Syria since 2019. Her youngest child, Jarrah, was born in the camp and died three weeks later from pneumonia. The al Hol and Roj camps have been referred to as "overcrowded displacement camps" by the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Roj Camp, the smaller of the two, is home to around 3,000 people, 65% of whom are children, according to recent United Nations Human Rights estimates.
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