Must a Child Live With the Choices Its Parents Make?

"He has done everything humanly possible to try and repatriate his niece, including going to the region earlier this year. He was told basically, face to face, all that needs to happen is the Canadian government has to make an official request and then provide a representative or delegate and they would be more than happy to send Amira on her way home, here to Canada."

"Amira is now five years old. She suffers from asthma. Any type of COVID outbreak in the Al-Hawl camp, which houses between 60,000 and 70,000 people, would be risking her life."

"For some reason, the Syrian government has asked, has looked into trying to identify her and locate her. We don't want to think about the consequences of what might happen if the Syrian government went after Amira and tried to take custody of her."

"This is very much a case that is being advanced on Amira's behalf, but depending on the results of it, for sure I would imagine there would be other applicants if we are successful."

"It is hard to try and understand the thinking. I don't know why they wouldn't want to repatriate a five-year-old orphaned Canadian girl to come live with her only surviving family."

Lawrence Greenspon, lawyer for Syrian-Canadian family

"This is an extremely complex situation and we recognize how difficult it is for this child and her family in Canada."

"Consular officials are actively engaged with Syrian Kurdish authorities and the international non-governmental organization providing care to her. Canada does not have a diplomatic presence in Syria and, in light of the security situation, it is extremely difficult to provide consular services anywhere in Syria. This is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic."

John Babcock, spokesman, Global Affairs Canada 

Women and children related to fighters of the Islamic State group wait to board buses and trucks, leaving the overcrowded al-Hol camp to return to their homes on June 3, 2019, in Hasakeh province, Syria. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Baderkhan Ahmad

Not all that long ago, when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had possession of great swaths of both Iraq and Syria, with plans to expand their 'caliphate' to execute the promise of Islamist conquest not only of majority Muslim countries in the Middle East, but far beyond, their clarion call to believers to join them resonated with Muslims throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania and North America, and an in-gathering of Muslims from all points of the geographic compass began.

Canada supplied ISIS with some of their jihadist warriors, aspiring to rise to the exalted levels of international terrorism that ISIS's exploits so exemplified. Regular updates in the form of news releases, videos and slick online 'magazines' horrified the world being exposed to the butchery and imaginative atrocities that the Islamic State scoured the annals of Medieval history to replicate. The numbers of terrorism volunteers basking in the glory of jihad re-awakened, soared.

News stories outlined the process of mosques being infiltrated by ISIS recruiters finding a ready and excited hearing among young Muslim men and women. Among those recruiters were Islamic clerics, people with influence in their communities who plotted with willing recruits to enable them to leave the country, destination Turkey where enablers were prepared to transit them into Syria to be incorporated into the caliphate and the ranks of ISIS terrorists. Among them were entire families. 

Women and children walk inside the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria on Jan. 14, where families of Islamic State foreign fighters are held. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images

Young children were introduced in Raqqa to indoctrinating processes to bring them spiritually and culturally into the ISIS sphere, teaching them at an early age to handle weapons, not to flinch but to rejoice at taking lives and inducting them into the process of killing. Among other Canadians were the unidentified parents of a little girl now languishing in the notoriously violent camp holding ISIL prisoners and their families. The little girl was born in Syria. And her parents and her three siblings were killed in an airstrike during anti-ISIL operations in 2019.

When she was four, the little girl was found wandering about on her own in northeastern Syria and taken into protective custody, placed in the camp as an ISIL survivor. The only real resistance to the murderous ISIL onslaughts in Syria were the Kurdish fighters. Kurdistan also provided protection for minority groups including Christians who were targeted by ISIS; terrorized and murdered. The little girl, Amira, was located by her Canadian uncle, who envisioned rescuing her, bringing her to Canada, and raising her.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) security launched a campaign to identify and register foreign women accused of Islamic State ties at the Al Hol camp in northern Syria, June 10, 2020. (Photo: Hawar News Agency)

Kurdish authorities would be only too pleased to have one less person to have under their guardianship. They have, in fact, been appealing for years to the global community that provided ISIS with some of their recruits and who have since shuddered at the prospect of repatriating them, though some have, to a degree. Canada has not been among them. Some Canadian Muslims who joined ISIS did return to Canada, and are purportedly under surveillance by Canadian intelligence agencies. Prosecuting them for war crimes under Canadian justice is problematical due to the lack of evidence of substance.

In Canadian public opinion to even think of bringing such brutal monsters back to Canada as a government move is hugely unpopular, and government has its ear to the mind of the public where outrage would be expressed with no uncertainty at their retrieval and at the ballot box. Bringing a child into Canada, orphaned by her parents' willingness to expose their children to the inhumanity of a religion's disregard for the sanctity of life of those not willing to surrender to Islam is another story altogether.

Amira's uncle contacted humanitarian organizations to locate her. She also has grandparents living in Toronto. What their politics happen to be, combined with their religion is unknown; what is known is that some parents were helpless to influence their offspring not to become part of the curse on humanity that ISIS represented. As a last-chance hope, the uncle appealed to the Federal Court of Canada to have the government of Canada commit to bringing the child to Canada to be raised by her remaining family.

Claims that Syria's government is interested in the little girl, are, on the face of the situation, absurd; a too-obvious bid to raise concern. No need to raise further concern over the welfare of a young child in the presence of the virulently hateful women controlling the camp who continue to support the agenda of ISIS as faithful jihadists. Amira is Canadian by virtue of her parents having Canadian citizenship. The family in Canada cannot be identified for privacy purposes. 

In this March 31, 2019, photo, children play in a mud puddle in the section for foreign families at Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria. (AP)

On the other hand, should the uncle's appeal to permit the child to return to Canada in their care succeed, a flood of similar requests for return could ensue, involving unsavoury, criminally-involved Muslim Canadians being held in the camp. In the camp, another 26 Canadian children languish, however. The situation is a real puzzler; on the one hand as Canadian citizens, these retrograde humans are the responsibility of the government of Canada, on the other hand, with an ongoing lack of response from Canada, the Kurdish government in Syria is left with a problem not of its own making.

By continuing to do nothing, while declaring concern over a child's welfare, it is clear the government hopes the problem will simply disappear. The uncle, Ibrahim, had recently travelled to northeastern Syria and encountered no difficulties, meeting with the little girl and with Kurdish authorities who assured him of their willingness to discharge the child to Canadian care. Issuing the documents required, enabling the child to travel to Canada to be cared for by her family is simply the right thing to do.

Children at the Kurdish-run Al Hol detention camp in northern Syria last year.   Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times