Morally I hate the idea of condemning children, it goes against the grain for me as I’m both a parent and a person who wants to see children protected from harm. Unfortunately a highly alarming report by Sky News a few days ago about the sort of children that are being held in holding camps in Kurdish held Syria has hardened my heart somewhat.

The article was about how this holding camp has all the makings of a mini ISIS caliphate. This camp is where the worst of the worst of the jihadi brides and their children are being held. The disturbing Sky report shows that the children in this camp may well be so warped by being brought up with ISIS ideology and the sight of ISIS atrocities that they may be mentally unrecoverable.

I used to be somewhat in favour of bringing back those children who had been brought to ISIS held territory against their will and deradicalising them and even placing them with non Muslim adoptive parents as a method of saving them. However, after reading the Sky article, I’m not not so sure that this would be a good idea.

These children are unbelievably warped. They see killing people for ‘Allah’ as a good thing and something that is morally acceptable. After reading this shocking article, I’m not sure that these children could ever be cured of the Islamic madness that they have had imposed on their minds. I’m not even sure that the best psychatirsts in the West could ever extract the insanity that these kids have been told is ‘good’. They are, possibly irredeemably warped and therefore a potential danger to the Western countries to which they and their parents want to return.

I still think that these children should be helped to live normal lives and to be freed of the death cult brainwashing that they have had done to them. But, this help should be given in situ and not in the West. I would fully support and endorse an international effort both by governments and by NGO’s to give psychological help to these warped children and to deradicalise their parents, but this work needs to be done far away from the Western nations that both the parents and the children have pledged to destroy.

It would be correct morally not to abandon these children, but we should also not be naive and allow them back to the West where they may likely end up as the next generation of Islamic terrorists. It’s right and proper that these children are helped but it should not be at the expense of our children who will be expected to share schools with them if they returned or who may end up as victims of the Islamic terror that these children may bring with them in the future.