16 February 2021, 15h00 Geneva time

The Bulan Institute is hosting a panel discussion to discuss the state policies to deal with former ISIS fighters and their associates. Currently, more than 70,000 women and children with links to ISIS and other terrorist groups have been held in camps in northeast Syria. The United Nations and its mandates have urged states to repatriate their citizens by recalling that the urgent return and repatriation of foreign fighters and their families from conflict zones is the only international law-compliant response to the increasingly inhumane conditions in overcrowded camps, prisons, or elsewhere in the northern Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq. The UN Special Rapporteurs stated that such return is a comprehensive response that amounts to a positive implementation of Security Council resolutions 2178 (2014) and 2396 (2017) and is considerate of a State’s long-term security interests.

Even though the European states have been in the best position to ensure the protection of human rights for children and their guardians in camps in the northern Syrian Arab Republic, only few countries repatriated a small number of children. Countries face many challenges of political, legal and practical nature such as an absence of consular services in northeast Syria, lack of enough evidences for persecution and difficulties of identification of their citizens etc. States also refer to hardship to take individual approaches to the distinct profiles of the individuals concerned and be specific to the immediate, medium- and longer-term challenges facing the countries and communities. This situation is further complicated in practice as many children do not have legal documentation, are orphaned, or, are either accompanied by foreign mothers or fathers.

Speakers:

Letta Tayler

Associate Director and terrorism/counterterrorism lead,

Crisis & Conflict Division, Human Rights Watch

Oliya Ilmuradova

Director of NGO “Barqaror Hayot”, Uzbekistan

Saule Mektepbaeva

Programme Management Officer at the UN Counter-Terrorism Center, UNOCT.

Cooper Ebsary

Moderator, the Bulan Institute

Registration is mandatory to the event. If you want to participate please fill the form in: https://forms.gle/AiSj2rNcxo2NmWvE9