The difficult path of re-integration
“The recruiter saw that I was very depressed and that my ex-husband had abandoned me. Then he played on those weaknesses”.
The story of Laura Passoni is one of many. After her ex-husband left her and her young son, she felt depressed, lost, and turned to religious groups on Facebook to find meaning and consolation. That is how a recruiter of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) found her, and lured her into traveling to Syria together with her small son in 2014.[1]
When the true nature under ISIL, the repression of women and the killing of innocent people, became clear to her, Laura soon started to regret her decision. In 2015, Laura managed to flee to Belgium where she was arrested upon return. She temporarily lost custody of her children and she was prosecuted. Later, she was released conditionally. Since then, Laura has been sharing her story to prevent others from repeating the same mistake.
Women are there just to procreate. We had no rights. We were prisoners there.
It is estimated that approximately 40 000 foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) from all around the world have travelled to the conflict zones in Syria and Iraq since 2011. Approximately 80% of those migrated to join the terrorist group ISIL.[2] Women and children constitute 25% of those who travelled from abroad to the terrorist-controlled areas.[3]
Since the collapse of the last ISIL strongholds and the establishment of camps for FTF family members, such as al-Hol in northeastern Syria, the humanitarian and security situation in Syria and Iraq, and the poor conditions in those camps, have captured the attention of the international community. Yet many countries have been reluctant or slow to repatriate their citizens.
According to estimates, women and children from at least 60 countries are stranded in inhumane conditions, without proper sanitation or medical care.[4] According to international law, states are obliged to protect the rights of their citizens, even those who might have committed crimes. Moreover, children living in these camps, either as orphans or with their parents are first and foremost victims. They are exposed to violent extremist propaganda and encouraged to take violent action, which further stresses the need for their quick repatriation and re-integration. In addition, failure to repatriate the FTFs and their families risks further feeding into the instability in the region and aggravating a conflict-prone situation.
Repatriation of the FTFs is the only way to ensure just prosecution processes for those who have committed crimes. Apart from that, collaboration between the justice systems and security sector actors, physical and mental health providers, education and employment services, civil society actors and receiving communities is required for a successful reintegration of the returning FTF family members.
Barkaror Hayot, established in 2003, is an Uzbek NGO that helps women and children returning from conflict zones. The NGO has implemented more than 50 educational and social projects to support children and women returnees. In 2021, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan (PCUz), in partnership with Barkaror Hayot, launched a series of workshops for representatives of local authorities and civil society on social reintegration and rehabilitation of returning FTF family members.
Oliya Ilmuradova is the Director of Barkaror Hayot and has witnessed first-hand the challenges and successes of rehabilitation and reintegration programmes.
Based on our experience, I would like to assure those who are skeptical about the return of their citizens, that the results achieved through rehabilitation processes are convincing. However, this is no reason to celebrate. Rehabilitation processes are very fragile. They require constant daily attention by dozens of specialists. In some cases, it may take us several years to fully reintegrate people into society. We should be ready to accompany them on this difficult path.
Oliya Ilmuradova Director of Barkaror Hayot
Often returnees are stigmatized by the receiving communities and lack genuine opportunities to re-integrate back into society. This could easily lead to relapse and return to violent extremism organizations.
To help avoid such outcomes, the OSCE builds the capacity of participating States and civil society actors in preventing violent extremism and radicalization leading to terrorism (VERLT). Since 2016 the OSCE’s Leaders against Intolerance and Violent Extremism (LIVE) Initiative has developed a capacity-building programme for women, youth and community leaders to strengthen awareness and resilience towards VERLT within communities, to influence related national and international policies and to develop meaningful local prevention initiatives. The LIVE Initiative is implemented in collaboration with OSCE field operations and supported by multiple expert partners.
One of these partner organizations, Search for Common Ground Kyrgyzstan, is working to promote social cohesion among returnees and their families, to enable an inclusive and conflict-sensitive programme on rehabilitation and reintegration across Central Asia.
Keneshbek Sainazarov, Central Asia Program Director of Search for Common Ground emphasizes the importance of linkages between prevention and rehabilitation one the one hand and re-integration efforts on the other hand:
To me what connects the prevention and rehabilitation and re-integration efforts in violent extremism is the root causes, why individuals end up joining violent extremist organizations. If we are able to critically approach our interventions from the perspective of the root causes, be it social cohesion, or social justice in the society, or critical thinking skills, both our prevention as well as rehabilitation and reintegration efforts will be more effective.
Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches are key for addressing those root causes and for the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of the FTFs and their family members. At the OSCE Regional Policy Dialogue on the Prosecution, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration of FTFs in October 2021, Melisa Hasanović, Head of the Welfare Centre in Hadzici, Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated: “When we talk about the preparation of families, local communities and professionals for the return of FTFs and associated family members, the co-operation of all actors in society can’t be overstated”.
The OSCE will continue to support participating States in co-ordinating their efforts and developing human rights-compliant policies and practices for rehabilitation and reintegration. [5] By working together, we can help people like Laura Passoni to find their way back to society and prevent others from falling victim to false promises of violent extremist and terrorist organizations.
[1] On a video published by the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), she thinks back to the events that drove her to leave her life in Belgium and to join ISIL in Syria in 2014.
[2] “FOREIGN TERRORIST FIGHTERS”, UNODC.
[4] “UNICEF calls for the safe reintegration and repatriation of all children in al-Hol Camp and across the northeast of Syria”, UNICEF, 28 February 2021.
[5] In 2020 OSCE published a guidebook on Non-custodial Rehabilitation and Reintegration in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization That Lead to Terrorism with regional focus on South Eastern Europe.