II. Terminology

In our work on counter-terrorism, we aim to avoid using terms such as ‘terrorism’, ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ uncritically, as they are contested, lack clear definition, and cannot be separated from the logic of national security law and policy and their impact on children’s rights. Where it is necessary to use these terms in order to refer to their usage by others, we enclose them in quotation marks

In place of ‘terrorism’, we use the term ‘atrocities by non-state armed groups’ (or ‘atrocities’).

In place of characterising some children as ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’, we use the phrase ‘recruitment and use of children by non-state armed groups’, which is recognised by international law as a violation of children’s rights.

Finally, when using ‘deradicalisation’ we would like the reader to be mindful of the term’s shortcomings and inherent biases, as discussed below.

For a fuller explanation of our approach and the reasons behind it, please refer to the note on terminology on pages 6-7 of our Preventing Safeguarding report.

III. International Instruments

There are a number of international instruments that offer guidelines on the rehabilitation and reintegration of child returnees. While they often lack a high level of detail, they nonetheless make a strong case for authorities to repatriate children and focus on their rehabilitation and reintegration.

Secretary-General of the UN

In 2019, the Secretary-General of the UN published the Key Principles for the Protection, Repatriation, Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Women and Children with Links to United Nations Listed Terrorist Groups:

• He stated that ‘Rehabilitation and reintegration of children linked with United Nations listed terrorist groups must be prioritized [...] This includes access to age and gender appropriate services, including mental health and psychosocial support, education and legal assistance’.¹⁰

• In the case of children who may be in conflict with the law, he emphasised that ‘[c]hildren’s best interests require prioritization of rehabilitation and reintegration in any contact they have with the law’.¹¹

Council of Europe

In 2020, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a resolution in which it urged Member States to ‘take all necessary measures to ensure the effective rehabilitation and (re-)integration of all returnee children’.¹²

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

In 2018, OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) issued guidelines for States to address the issue of returning ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ within a human rights framework. The guidelines established that ‘States should implement tailored reintegration programmes for returning children, including by assigning mentors and a range of support to enable them to return to their former lives without stigmatization or alienation’.¹⁰

IV. Deradicalisation vs. disengagement

The literature shows a consistent tension in the design of reintegration and rehabilitation programmes between approaches focused on deradicalisation and on disengagement.

While disengagement emphasises behavioural change, deradicalisation focuses on change in beliefs. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, and most programmes feature traits of both.¹⁵

However, literature raises a number of concerns as regards deradicalisation:

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• ‘Deradicalisation’ is premised on an oversimplification that is not supported by evidence: that the adoption of ‘radical views’ necessarily leads to involvement in ‘radical behaviour’ and that desistance from violence similarly necessitates the abandonment of such views.¹⁶

• Focusing on changing a person’s beliefs may violate the right to freedom of thought.¹⁷

• ‘Deradicalisation’ may not necessarily be a prerequisite for reintegration. Seemingly, the majority of the persons who were convicted and subsequently released in Europe between the 1960s and 1990s due to their involvement in atrocities committed by IRA, ETA, Red Brigades and Red Army Faction did not undergo any formal deradicalisation programme and are no longer involved in atrocities, at least to the same extent.¹⁸ This suggests that reintegration may not necessarily be premised upon prior ‘deradicalisation’.

• Research shows that disengagement – not taking part in atrocities – is more achievable than ‘deradicalisation’ – changing someone’s ideology.¹⁹

Despite these critiques, literature suggesting ‘deradicalisation’ should be left behind when it comes to child returnees is scarce. And although there is an acknowledgement that ‘deradicalisation’ should not be the only tool upon which programmes rely, the mainstream narrative in the rehabilitation and reintegration discourse is often uncritical of the inherent shortcomings of deradicalisation-based approaches. Indeed, a number of proposals for the rehabilitation and reintegration of child returnees highlight that special attention should be paid to the persistence of extreme ideology.²⁰

Further Reading

• Stevan Weine and Heidi Ellis, Rehabilitating and Reintegrating Child Returnees from ISIS, Just Security, 6 June 2020.

• Liesbeth van der Heide, Ideology matters: why we cannot afford to ignore the role of ideology in dealing with terrorism, Penal Reform International, 3 April 2018.

• Liesbeth van der Heide and Jip Geenen, Children of the Caliphate: Young IS Returnees and the Reintegration Challenge, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, August 2017.

• Radicalisation Awareness Network, RAN issue paper: Foreign fighter returnees & the reintegration challenge, November 2016.

• Faiza Patel, Rethinking Radicalization, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2011.

• Andrew Silke, Disengagement or Deradicalization: A Look at Prison Programs for Jailed Terrorists, 4(1) CTC Sentinel, 2011.

• John Horgan, Deradicalization or Disengagement? A Process in Need of Clarity and a Counterterrorism Initiative in Need of Evaluation, 2(4) Perspectives on Terrorism, 2008.

V. Reintegration and rehabilitation of child returnees in practice

Although reintegration and rehabilitation programmes focused on children recruited and used by non-state armed groups are scant, a number of States that have repatriated children from Syria have put in place programmes aiming at their reintegration and rehabilitation:

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• Having repatriated 490 children,²¹ Kazakhstan leads international efforts and its model has been considered ‘highly successful and aspirational’. The country uses 17 rehabilitation and reintegration centres, which centralise children’s support from mental health professionals, religious scholars, lawyers, healthcare workers, and teachers in order to transition to life in the country. Children stay in a centre for around a month, are given Kazakh birth certificates, and receive individual learning to be able to begin formal education upon their departure.²²

• Denmark uses the ‘Aarhus model’, which focuses on ‘on practical and psychological, but not ideological, interventions for’ returnees and is one of the ‘best-known’ amongst the reintegration and rehabilitation programmes.²³ The model involves cooperation between police, social workers and religious groups, provides for specialised psychological counselling and assigns young people returning to the country with trained mentors.²⁴

• In Belgium, upon arrival, children are taken to a paediatric hospital, where their medical, psychosocial, education and outpatient care needs are assessed. Family members spend time with them there until they are released in their community, where they benefit from specific services.²⁵

• In Finland, the returnee policy adopted in 2017 requires that central government and municipal authorities and CSOs work together to ensure sufficient support for the reintegration of returnees into Finnish society. The policy’s aim is to provide children with systematic and long-term support on a case-by-case basis, relying on cooperation between authorities.²⁶

• In Germany, reintegration and rehabilitation services are coordinated through a case manager who oversees the cooperation of various structures like youth welfare, offices, schools, and employment agencies. Returnees are supervised to assess their reintegration.²⁷

• In 2020, North Macedonia adopted a reintegration programme which involves different national institutions, creates multidisciplinary teams, allows for civil society engagement, and addresses the psychosocial needs of child returnees. Although the plan may face challenges regarding institutional capacities and coordination, experts on the repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration of family members from North East Syria have praised it as ‘ambitious and well-designed’.²⁸

Nevertheless, the biggest barrier that these programmes and research on the reintegration and rehabilitation of child returnees face is the lack of information and evidence available on their effectiveness.

Although some evaluations have taken place, research evaluating reintegration and rehabilitation programmes is generally lacking.²⁹ Moreover, although ‘reducing recidivism’ is often the goal of reintegration programmes, the lack of sufficient data on this subject prevents an objective assessment of programmes’ success.³⁰

For example, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation commissionned a ‘survey of deradicalisation, disengagement and reintegration programmes (both voluntary and compulsory) in 10 countries’.³¹ While highlighting the Danish Aarhus model, as well as Kazakhstan’s efforts, he acknowledged that:

"Little is reported or known about the effectiveness of the programmes dealing with deradicalization/disengagement/reintegration. Many of them are in their infancy, and the programmes will not achieve instant results, but the greatest challenge must be to prove that they contribute to a reduced terror threat or that the paucity or reduction of terror attacks are due to the success of any of these programmes." ³²

However, other scholars have noted that ‘[w]hile the rehabilitation and reintegration programs implemented in Kazakhstan and Kosovo have not yet produced significant results, there have not been any major security consequences of repatriation in those countries’.³³

Further Reading

• UN Secretary-General’s ISIL reports.

• Rights & Security International, Global Repatriations Tracker, last updated on 5 July 2022.

• Save the Children International, When am I Going to Start to Live? The urgent need to repatriate foreign children trapped in Al Hol and Roj Camps, 2021.

• Carlota Rigotti and Júlia Zomignani Barboza, Unfolding the case of returnees: How the European Union and its member States are addressing the return of foreign fighters and their families, 103 International Review of the Red Cross, 681, 2021.

• William B. Farrell, Rustam Burnashev, Rustam Azizi, and Bakhtiyar Babadjanov, Processes of Reintegrating Central Asian Returnees from Syria and Iraq, 498 United States Institute of Peace, July 2021.

• Eric Rosand, Heidi Ellis and Stevan Weine, Repatriating ISIS Family Members: A North Macedonia Model?, Just Security, 14 September 2020.

• Sofia Koller et al., ‘Children and Adolescents’ in Issue Paper: Reintegration of Returnees from Syria and Iraq, German Council on Foreign Relations, 2020.

• Anne Speckhard and Molly Ellenberg, Perspective: Can We Repatriate the ISIS Children?, 3(3) Horizon Insights, 21, 2020.

• Manfred Nowak, ‘The United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty’, 2019.

• Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, Providing Psychosocial Care to Child Soldiers Living in Post-IS Iraq, ICCT Research Paper, 2019.

• Ahmad Saiful Rijal Bin Hassan, Denmark’s De-radicalisation Programme for Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters, 11(3) Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 13, March 2019.

• David Crouch and Jon Henley, A way home for jihadis: Denmark's radical approach to Islamic extremism, The Guardian, 23 February 2015.

• Radicalisation Awareness Network, RAN issue paper: Foreign fighter returnees & the reintegration challenge, November 2016.

• Andrew Silke, Disengagement or Deradicalization: A Look at Prison Programs for Jailed Terrorists, 4(1) CTC Sentinel, 2011.

VI. Academic proposals for rehabilitation and reintegration of child returnees

Academic proposals from child psychology/psychiatry scholars that focus on the rehabilitation and reintegration of child returnees are scarce. Against this background, some experts suggest that proposals could be informed by ‘Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration programs implemented with child soldiers in Africa and elsewhere’, as well as by ‘programs designed to help youth leave gangs’.³⁴

This review has found that the only ‘evidence-based framework for thinking about rehabilitation and reintegration’ of child returnees is the Rehabilitation and Reintegration Intervention Framework (RRIF) developed in 2020 by Stevan Weine and Heidi Ellis.³⁵

While noting that the ‘specific developmental trajectories of ISIS returnees’ are yet to be studied, the authors took Theresa Betancourt’s findings with regards to the successful rehabilitation of child soldiers from Sierra Leone as their starting point,³⁶ and reviewed 31 ‘prior studies in the areas of refugee children, war-impacted children, child criminal gang members, child victims of maltreatment, and child victims of sex trafficking’, as they found that ‘children’s exposure to trauma and adversity’ in these areas ‘overlapped significantly with that experienced by child returnees’.³⁷

As shown below, the RRIF pursues five primary goals across five levels of social interaction, while also identifying risk and protective factors:³⁸

Further Reading

• Stevan Weine and Heidi Ellis, Rehabilitating and Reintegrating Child Returnees from ISIS, Just Security, 6 June 2020.

• Stevan Weine et al., Rapid Review to Inform the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Child Returnees from the Islamic State, 86(1) Annals of Global Health, 64, 2020.

• Anne Speckhard and Molly Ellenberg, Perspective: Can We Repatriate the ISIS Children?, 3(3) Horizon Insights, 21, 2020.

Endnotes

¹ Save the Children, Speed up repatriations or foreign children could be stuck in North East Syria camps for up to 30 years, warns Save the Children, March 2022, available here.