Posted by Asia Views | Dec 9, 2020 |
PhilStar-Dec 8 President Rodrigo Duterte has urged Filipinos to skip Christmas festivities this year to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, which has infected thousands of people in the country and has forced the government...
Read MorePosted by Asia Views | Dec 9, 2020 |
BangkokPost-Dec 9 The pandemic crisis has bled the wealth of Thailand’s top 10 richest shareholders by 141 billion baht, with Gulf Energy Development’s chief executive Sarath Ratanavadi retaining the top spot for the...
Read MorePosted by Asia Views | Dec 8, 2020 |
JakartaPost-Dec 8 Indonesia’s ongoing battle against corruption appears to be making little headway as fewer people expressed enthusiasm for the government’s efforts to prevent illicit transactions and prosecute graft...
Read MorePosted by Asia Views | Dec 8, 2020 |
MalayMail-Dec 8 Civil society and fundamental freedoms in Asia took a bashing during the pandemic, a report by a global research collaboration showed. In its “People Power Under Attack 2020” annual report, Civicus Monitor said...
Read MorePosted by Asia Views | Dec 8, 2020 |
PhilStar-Dec 8 Days after declaring on national television that he does not care about human rights, President Duterte has called for a stronger engagement among different sectors to ensure a “healthy human rights environment”...
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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD
Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.
“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”
