The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the subcommittees on Security and Defence (SEDE) and Human Rights (DROI) made a plea on Thursday 7 November, for the rapid repatriation by Member States of all children of foreign jihadist combatants, the main fear being to allow these young people under 18, considered above all as victims, to become increasingly radicalised on the spot and become real “time bombs”, as described by French EPP MEP Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé.
Representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, as well as NGOs and representatives of Belgian structures were invited for the occasion, the objective of these three committees and subcommittees being to formulate a European message or a European tone to this problem which concerns several Member States - in particular France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom - but which remains for the Member States a national prerogative and an internal security issue.
According to the UN, according to known figures, there are still 700 to 750 EU children on the ground. About eight to nine Member States have so far repatriated “a limited number” of children, in particular orphans or unaccompanied minors, but each time these decisions were taken on a case-by-case basis.
About 300 French children are reported to be present, 200 from the Netherlands, 160 from Belgium and 60 from the United Kingdom, according to known figures. For these speakers, as well as for elected representatives such as France’s Nathalie Loseau (Renew Europe) or Belgium’s Marie Arena (S&D), it is urgent to consider these children above all as victims who are not responsible for their parents' crimes and to repatriate them as soon as possible in order to integrate them into structures enabling them to return to a normal life.
However, there are complex issues, as Christiane Hoehn of the Office of the Counter-Terrorism Coordinator has said: if the best interests of the child are to prevail, is it contributing to his or her well-being rather than repatriating him or her with “radicalised mothers, often the case”, the question being whether it would not be better to separate them from their mothers.
A debate that shocked some elected officials, such as Ireland’s Mick Wallace (GUE/NGL), who stressed that Europeans had “armed the jihadists” and had to accept their “responsibilities”, while, in the ranks of the far right, there were declarations of shock that the security of Europeans could be compromised by these repatriations. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)