Shamima Begum: 'Overwhelming evidence' IS bride was trafficking victim, court hears
Ms Begum also wants to challenge the removal of her British citizenship on the grounds that it made her "de facto stateless".
Saturday 19 June 2021 06:09, UK
There is "overwhelming evidence" Shamima Begum was a victim of trafficking when she left the UK, a court has heard.
Ms Begum was 15 when she left east London with two other schoolgirls to join Islamic State in Syria in February 2015.
In 2019 she was found nine months pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp, and shortly after her British citizenship was revoked by then home secretary Sajid Javid over national security concerns.
In February this year, the Supreme Court ruled she could not return to the UK to pursue an appeal against the removal of her citizenship
Now 21, Ms Begum is challenging the Home Office's decision and has asked a specialist tribunal to consider whether she was a victim of trafficking when she travelled to Syria.
Her lawyers told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) at a hearing on Friday that the government had a legal duty to investigate whether she was a trafficking victim when her citizenship was removed.
Ms Begum's legal team said the Home Office failed to consider whether she was a "child trafficked to, and remaining in, Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage", despite the counter-terrorism unit having "suspicions of coercion and control" at the time she left the UK.
Ms Begum also wants to challenge her citizenship removal on the basis that it made her "de facto stateless" and the decision was procedurally unfair.
Lawyer Samantha Knights told the court the 21-year-old was currently held in al Roj camp in northern Syria, run by Syrian Democrat Forces, where "physical violence is common and psychological trauma is endemic".
She added that Ms Begum was "living in a situation of serious and present danger" and asked SIAC to consider her proposed new grounds of appeal in November.
Representing the Home Office, David Blundell said she should not be allowed to amend her grounds again and it was "significant that the allegation" is not that she was trafficked but that she may have been.
He said her argument was "entirely speculative", adding that Ms Begum had never stated she had been trafficked, "despite having given numerous media interviews and provided instructions to her solicitors on a number of matters".
Mr Blundell added: "Although Ms Begum focuses on the fact that she left at 15, she ignores the fact that she remained in Isil (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) territory in Syria for a considerable period of time as an adult, only leaving when the so-called caliphate fell."
The Home Office also argues that Ms Begum's case should be put on hold until a separate case before SIAC, which is due to be heard next March, has concluded.