Women face potential crimes-against-humanity charges over alleged Yazidi enslavement
Updated ,first published
So-called “ISIS brides” returning to Australia could face crimes against humanity charges over the alleged enslavement of Yazidi women when they arrive in Australia on Thursday evening.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett hinted at possible charges on Wednesday, saying police were investigating whether any of the women “may have committed Commonwealth crimes, including terrorism, offenses such as entering or remaining in declared areas, and crimes against humanity such as engaging in the slave trade.”
Janai Safar, who returned to Sydney with her young son, is expected to face charges of entering a designated restricted area or alien assault.
A separate family group of three women and eight children, including grandmother Kawsar Abbas and her daughters Zahra and Zeinab Ahmed, will arrive in Melbourne on Thursday evening after passing through Doha.
Some of these women may face charges related to allegations that Yazidi women were enslaved by their families in Syria.
“We have heard some disgusting reports and allegations of links to families associated with some ISIS brides in the enslavement of a group of Yazidis who have escaped from people associated with ISIS and are now living here in Australia,” opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said on Thursday.
“So there are some serious crimes that may have been committed,” he said.
Australian National University international law expert Don Rothwell said such charges of crimes against humanity would be “quite exceptional” in Australia and “extraordinarily difficult” to prove.
Noting the similarities with the war crimes charges against former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, he said: “We are talking about an alleged foreign crime that occurred some time ago and is based on foreign witnesses.”
Debates over whether women were active accomplices or bystanders in abuse by male family members who remained in Syria could complicate any attempt to prosecute.
A 2024 United Nations investigation found that members of the Islamic State in Syria “subjected Yazidi women and girls to enslavement, torture, inhumane treatment, murder, and rape, including sexual slavery, as part of their genocidal campaign.”
Safar, who has previously vowed not to return to Australia, will come to Sydney with his nine-year-old son, who was born in Syria and has spent his entire life living in Islamic State-controlled areas or Syrian detention camps.
His father was expected to try to meet him at Sydney Airport.
The former nursing student said in 2019 she would never return to Australia because she feared being treated like a criminal, jailed and her son taken away.
“It was my decision to come here to get away from where women were naked on the street. I don’t want my son to grow up like this,” Safar said. Australian.
“I didn’t educate anyone, I didn’t kill anyone. I just sat at home, they will put me in jail, they will take my child away from me. Why? I am a Muslim.”
While the coalition accused the government of failing to prevent women from returning to Australia, Education Minister Jason Clare said he was confident in the Australian Federal Police’s ability to integrate children into Australian society.
“They know what they’re doing. This isn’t their first rodeo,” Clare told ABC. News Breakfast.
“I trust the words of the AFP commissioner yesterday when he said that some of these women will be arrested when they arrive, while others will be subject to further investigation.”
Clare said children trapped in camps deserved the chance to start a new life in Australia.
“Children don’t get to choose who their parents are, and these children have seen things that no child should ever be exposed to,” he said. “It will take time for these children to reintegrate into Australian society.”
Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said the return of large numbers of ISIS brides to the state was an “unacceptable threat to community safety and social cohesion”.
“The Victorian Liberals and Nationals believe that any adult who leaves Australia to collaborate with a barbaric terrorist organization should not be welcomed back into our state,” Wilson said.
Gamel Kheir, secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, described the political debate over the return to Australia of 13 women and children with links to the Islamic State as “disgusting”.
“I’m not their defender, but I’m an advocate for the rule of law,” he said. “If they are guilty, put them in jail, but they are Australian citizens and the law should not be applied selectively. They have the right to return home.”
Kheir said children trapped in camps in northern Syria played no role in their location and deserved to be rehabilitated and start a new life in Australia.
“It’s disgusting that politicians are trying to gain political benefit from this. This issue has become blatantly Islamophobic for everyone,” he said.
Federal opposition defense spokesman James Paterson said: “I think a lot of Australians will be uneasy to learn that these could be their next door neighbours.”
Paterson told Sky News: “The revelation that some of these people will be charged with criminal offenses when they arrive in Australia is evidence of why they should not be issued passports and why provisional removal orders should be imposed to protect our country. But Labor clearly wanted these people to return to the country secretly and today they have granted that wish.”
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X, Facebook or email.
Mostafa Rachwani is a Parramatta reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously a Community Affairs correspondent for Guardian Australia.Connect via email.
