Women's Stories
Shamima Begum
In 2015, British national Shamima Begum was 15 years old when she, together with two friends, took a plane from her hometown of London, England, to Istanbul, Turkey to travel onward to territory held by the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS). After her arrival there, Begum married, then gave birth to, and subsequently buried, two children. Her London family, though desperate to get her back home, lost track of her, until in February 2019, Anthony Loyd, a Times journalist found her in a camp on the Syrian border. Loyd interviewed Begum, who asserted that she wanted to come home with her soon-to-be-born child, but also that things were not that bad under ISIS rule and that the 2017 bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was understandable retaliation for Western actions against ISIS. The recording went viral, meeting highly polarized media commentary. In the end, Savid Javid, then British Home secretary responded to Begum’s requests to return by revoking her British citizenship, with some arguing that Javid was using this case to bolster his bid for Conservative Party leadership (Greenfield 2019). In February 2021, the British Supreme Court rejected Begum’s request to return to Britain and appeal her citizenship revocation. Begum remains in a detention camp at the Syrian border, with her appeal to reinstate her citizenship continuing to wend its way through various courts.
Experience Shamima's Journey
See our compiled list of Shamima Begum Articles from the Sun, the Times, and the Guardian
Leonora Messing
Leonora M. secretly left her home in Breitenbach, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, when she was 15 years old. She arrived in Turkey and then crossed the border to Syria and joined ISIS. Her father Maik did everything in his power to find and bring her back. Their journey was followed by journalist Volkmar Kabisch, resulting in a book, a series of podcasts, and a documentary film. In December 2020, Leonora M. and her two children were repatriated back to Germany. In 2022, she was tried and received a two year suspended prison sentence.
A documentary film about her can be found in this link:
A book about her can be found in this link:
Podcast Series:
Experience Leonora's Journey
Jennifer Wenisch
Jennifer Wenisch, originally from Lohne in Lower Saxony, Germany, decided to travel to Syria and join ISIS at the age of 23. She married Iraqi Taha al-Jumailly and went with him to Fallujah, Iraq. In 2016, Jennifer Wenisch returned to Germany to give birth to their child. Then, she planned to return to the IS. During her time in Germany, security authorities found out that Jennifer and her husband bought a Yazidi woman and her five-year-old daughter as slaves and the child was tortured and died as a result. In 2021, Jennifer Wenisch was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Experience Jennifer's Journey
Laura Hansen
In 2015, Laura Hansen, a 19-year old Dutch national, left the Netherlands for Syria with her then-husband and two children. She lived there for close to a year before her father helped Hansen and her children return to the Netherlands. Upon her arrival, she was imprisoned in a high security prison, tried, and sentenced to two years for participating in a terrorist organization (of which 13 months were conditional). Hansen’s story was shaped by a bestselling book written by journalist Thomas Rueb (2018) that was broadly discussed in the media. The book describes Hansen as the first child in a “good” marriage between a white lawyer and a Surinamese administrative manager. When the family’s second child became severely ill, they focused on his health to the detriment of Hansen. Eventually, Hansen’s parents divorced, and when Hansen turned 17, her brother died. According to dominant media narratives, by age 13, Hansen coped with family trauma by turning to boys and was quickly labelled a “slut” by her peers. Hansen then tried to change her reputation by converting to Islam. She had a child, met, and married Ibrahim, with whom she had a second child. Ibrahim was severely abusive, and Hansen erroneously hoped that joining him in a move to Syria would help. Hansen now lives quietly with her two children, an example of rehabilitation to full citizenship.
