RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Ibtisam al-Issa, a 35-year-old woman from Intifada neighborhood in Syria’s northern city of Raqqa, hesitates to send her daughter, aged 9, to school after the girl was subjected to bullying because her father had joined the Islamic State (ISIS).
Al-Issa and her daughter stay with her parents. Last year, they went out of Hawl Camp after some dignitaries from her own tribe guaranteed her.
She has been attempting to adapt to society again and lead a normal life. However, the stance of the society against them never changed.
Her husband was an ISIS member and was captured during a battle against ISIS.
Al-Issa’s husband joined ISIS in 2014 when ISIS took control of Raqqa. He then took his wife and resided in Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, where ISIS was in control. After the defeat of ISIS in Baghouz town in Deir ez-Zor, the husband was arrested and al-Issa and her daughter were transferred to Hawl Camp, according to al-Issa.
ISIS children face challenges and difficulties while trying to reintegrate in society. They are subjected to bullying at school or in their own neighborhood.
Daughter of ISIS member
The girl’s friends at school or those in the neighborhood bully her and do not play with her. They always tell her in the face that she is “a daughter of an ISIS member”.
The girl now hates to go to school fearful her friends will bully her and hold her responsible why her father was an ISIS member, “a sin the father committed” and the mother could not prevent.
Al-Issa is profoundly concerned her daughter would suffer mental health problems because of being bullied at school and in the neighborhood amid lack of awareness sessions to the children and absence of anti-bullying institutions to reintegrate ISIS children into society and prove the children have no guilt for their own fathers’ mistakes.
Toll of families who got out of Hawl Camp to Raqqa is 817, including 2,763 individuals, mostly women and underage children.
Bullying and deprivation
Najah Ismail, another woman from the same neighborhood, said she no longer sent her son to school after a dispute between the son and school friends arouse as her son’s friends described him as “ISIS boy” and refused to play or even speak to him.
Ismail reluctantly forced her children to stay at home because of constant bullying they faced at school and in the neighborhood. Now, reintegration with society, the way the mother has longed for, was no longer available.
Ismail explained to North Press that her situation and her children’s is not good under the worsening economic conditions in Raqqa and the lack of a breadwinner.
The majority of women who got out of Hawl Camp and resided in Raqqa and its countryside complain their children are subjected to bullying.
The biggest problem, they said, is that their relatives disowned them because their husbands were ISIS members.
Rehabilitation
Amira al-Hassan, co-chair of the Child Protection Office in Raqqa, said the office cooperates with local organizations and associations to implement a plan for the rehabilitation of the children who got out of Hawl Camp.
“Plans for the children rehabilitation are supposed to start soon. The plan will include programs about psychological support, social events, follow-up the children’s situation and learning about what they have gone through during their stay at Hawl Camp,” she said.
Al-Hassan pointed out that overlooking the hardships and radicalization the children went through in Hawl Camp have dangerous consequences and that the society will pay the price for it.