Various terrorist and paramilitary organizations exploit children for their purposes. We can see teenagers among the ISIS, as well as among Shiite military groups, which declared “fighting ISIS” as their primary objective. There are also “children of ISIS” in Syria and Iraq, brought by their parents, who joined ISIS. Some of them were born there. Most of the children have lost, at least, one parent. They are deprived of material benefits, quality education, and health services; they don’t have a roof over their heads. Today, during the coronavirus pandemic, these children have faced a new challenge. We asked Founder & Executive Director Working Group on Children Recruited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups Cecilia Polizzi to comment on the situation around the children involved in the conflict and brought there by their parents.

1. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 1/6
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Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately,
an estimated 5,000
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2. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 2/6
27.04.2020
Various terrorist and paramilitary organizations exploit
children for their purposes. We can see teenagers among
the ISIS, as well as among Shiite military groups, which
declared “fighting ISIS” as their primary objective. There
are also “children of ISIS” in Syria and Iraq, brought by
their parents, who joined ISIS. Some of them were born
there. Most of the children have lost, at least, one parent.
They are deprived of material benefits, quality education,
and health services; they don’t have a roof over their
heads. Today, during the coronavirus pandemic, these
children have faced a new challenge.
We asked Founder & Executive Director Working Group on
Children Recruited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist
Groups Cecilia Polizzi to comment on the situation around
the children involved in the conflict and brought there by
their parents.
The Syrian crisis uniquely portrays the contemporary
complexities of war. The rise of the self-proclaimed
Islamic State of Iraq (IS) and al-Sham has marked the
beginning of a new jihadist era. The systematic focus on
child recruitment and re-education has represented a
prominent segment of the group long-term purpose to
self-perpetuation and has added a multigenerational
dimension to the Syrian conflict complex legacies.
The IS has changed the nature of child participation in
terrorism. Reportedly, boys under eighteen years of age
have been executed—either beheaded or shot—for
suspected affiliation with other armed groups and
torture, mass forced enslavement and sexual violence
have been practiced against girls as young as ten years
old, mostly from the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq.
However, children have not only been extensively
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3. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 3/6
targeted by the group but they also witnessed and
perpetrated IS executions.
The tactical benefits in using children as an effective
form of psychological warfare have been combined with
the group’s intention to prioritize children as a vehicle
to propagate its dogma through future generations. In
fact, IS ambition to create and impose a new socio-
political order depended on the concretization of its
perspectives of longevity. Ultimately, an estimated
5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014.
Uncharacteristically to other terrorist organizations, the
mobilization of children became one of the primary
vectors of IS propaganda. Notably, one third of minors
and juveniles eulogized as martyrs were not Syrian
nationals. The youngest is a boy of four, brought to
Syria as an infant by his British mother, who was shown
in a video appearing to detonate the explosives in a car
killing three prisoners.
This data can be explained by what was later described
by commentators as a progressive retreat of the group
into a “virtual caliphate”, a time during which, as a
consequence of the loss of territory, propaganda
assumed increasing relevance in drawing Foreign
Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) to the Syrian conflict.
Reportedly, at a rate of 2,000 individuals per month, by
2015 approximately 40,000 FTFs from 120 countries
traveled to the region to combine force with local Syrian
and Iraqis.
In your opinion, what should the international society and
international humanitarian organizations undertake, to
protect the rights of these children, keep them safe, and,
probably, get them out of Syria and Iraq – is it possible in
the present circumstances?
The condition of children of FTFs, who were brought by
their parents to Syria and Iraq or have born to FTFs
families in the region is particularly concerning.
According to the most recent figures, more than 7,000
foreign children are being held in deteriorating
conditions in the al-Hol Annex in Northeast Syria.
Several hundred more in Ain Issa and Roj. The 66% of
foreign children are under age 18, two third of which
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4. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 4/6
under age 12 – most under age 5 – orphans, their
parents missing or deceased. An additional estimate of
1,500 are currently detained for suspected IS affiliation
by Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
authorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic imposes a further set of risks
to these children. While infectious disease outbreaks
invariably exacerbate pre-existing child protection
challenges, the impact of COVID-19 is likely to severely
jeopardize children safety and well-being. Most
vulnerable categories including refugees, IDPs as well as
children deprived of their liberty incur a grave risk of
contracting COVID-19. Confinement, overcrowding and
inadequate access to nutrition, healthcare and hygiene
services are conducive conditions to the spread of the
disease.
Many countries in the midst of armed conflict, and
particularly Syria, have incurred substantial damage to
critical health infrastructures. Healthcare and
humanitarian workers are describing the potential
scenario of the virus reaching Syria or Yemen as
impossible to manage. The current circumstances
require a need to rapidly accommodate increased child
protection needs. Humanitarian agencies have
undertaken urgent action to prevent and control the
spread of COVID-19 infections including, risk
communication, increasing access to handwashing,
water, sanitation, food, medical care, hygiene and other
essential services. However, in conjunction with the
maintenance and the scaling up of existing
humanitarian responses, public information campaigns
and advocacy efforts, aiming at counteracting
stigmatization, discrimination and marginalization are
particularly relevant to children of FTFs or children
suspected of having been formerly recruited and
exploited by IS.
The status of these children is however highly
contentious. The perceptions of children in IS-ranks as
a serious security threat have not only imposed severe
limitations on their capacity to afford the system of
protection prescribed by the rule of law with the
corresponding legal architecture on child soldiering but
two of the
Ahwazi Arab
women who were
detained along
with hundreds of
other protesters
by the Ira...
More+

5. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 5/6
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have also informed decision-making by their States of
nationality with respect to repatriation. Government-
level responses have so far proven to be inconsistent,
varying from a resistance to repatriation to revocation
of citizenship. While the repatriation of children is
widely regarded as the sole viable option to ensure their
well-being, neutralize further security threats as well as
minimize their exposure to secondary victimization,
abuses and human rights violations, only a few
government have proactively sought it. National
policies of isolation, imposed travel restrictions and a
halt on the intake of refugees in response to COVID-19
further restrict such possibility.
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6. 09/10/2020 Cecilia Polizzi: Ultimately, an estimated 5,000 children entered IS ranks since 2014 | The Greater Middle East
https://tgme.org/2020/04/cecilia-polizzi-ultimately-an-estimated-5000-children-entered-is-ranks-since-2014/ 6/6
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