The Return: Life after Isis

When the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces defeated Isis in Baghouz in 2019, after a months-long battle over an area of land less than 700 square metres, it marked the end of the Islamic State’s caliphate. How would it be for Kurdish women to open up with a group of women who have been in Isis, and how would it be for these women who have been in Isis to be part of this workshop?” By her also offering women like Begum and Hoda Muthana, a young American-born mother who’d tried to incite terrorist attacks in the US on Twitter, space to talk about themselves freely and in depth, and giving context to their stories, Clua hoped to go beyond the polarised drama of the women’s desire to return home and its opposition, and reach a more nuanced understanding of what had gone wrong, and, maybe, find some solutions to how to prevent others taking the wrong path in the future. They didn’t know who we were, so it was a process.” While Clua could understand, to an extent, why women in Syria and Iraq found themselves inside Isis – “Their families became Isis, and their children became Isis, and then it’s like a natural thing that a mother feels and thinks what her adult son is defending” – she’d found it hard to grasp while filming Commander Arian what young western women could have found so seductive about such a repressive and misogynistic order. open image in gallery In June, a court heard there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Begum was a victim of trafficking when she left the UK “I think it’s quite general that maybe most of the young women had that kind of situation that, as a teenager, it’s normal that you feel your mum doesn’t love you, that your mum doesn’t understand you, that your family doesn’t listen to you,” says Clua. open image in gallery In an interview in 2019, Begum said ‘I didn’t want to be an IS poster girl’ “Through just sitting and listening and trying to leave all this pain aside, and just trying to find a way out of all this violence, I realised how necessary and how important women are in these kinds of processes, because I think it is easier in a female context to be able to, even if it is very difficult, find a way out of a conflict that doesn’t go through arms.” While many contend that women like Begum should not be allowed to go home, Clua believes that engagement is a vital part of the answer to weakening the allure of Isis.