Returning ‘ISIS brides’ could face ‘exceptional’ slavery charges

Some of the so-called “ISIS brides” returning to Australia could face crimes-against-humanity charges relating to the alleged enslavement of Yazidi women when they arrive in Australia on Thursday evening.

Australian Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett flagged the possible charges on Wednesday when she said police had been investigating whether any of the women “may have committed Commonwealth offences, including terrorism, offences such as entering or remaining in declared areas, and crimes-against-humanity offences such as engaging in slave trading”.

Janai Safar, who is returning to Sydney with her young son, is expected to face charges relating to entering a designated exclusion zone or foreign incursion offences.

A separate family group of three women and eight children, including grandmother Kawsar Abbas and daughters Zahra and Zeinab Ahmed, will arrive in Melbourne on Thursday evening after transiting through Doha.

Some of these women could face charges relating to allegations by Yazidi women that they were enslaved by the family in Syria.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said on Thursday that “we’ve heard some hideous reports and allegations of links to the families associated with some of the ISIS brides around the enslavement of Yazidis, a group of whom live now here in Australia, having fled those associated with ISIS”.

“So, there are some serious crimes that may well have been committed,” he said.

Australian National University international law expert Don Rothwell said such crimes-against-humanity charges would be “quite exceptional” in Australia and “exceptionally challenging” to prove.

Citing similarities to the war crimes charges laid against former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, he said: “We are talking about an alleged foreign crime, which happened some time ago and relying on foreign witnesses.”

Any attempted prosecution could be complicated by debate about whether the women were active co-conspirators or bystanders in abuse perpetrated by male family members who remain in Syria.

A United Nations investigation in 2024 found that Islamic State members in Syria “subjected Yazidi women and girls to enslavement, torture, inhuman treatment, murder and rape, including through sexual slavery, as part of their genocidal campaign”.

Safar, who previously vowed not to return to Australia, will arrive in Sydney with her nine-year-old son, who was born in Syria and has spent his entire life living in Islamic State-controlled territory or Syrian detention camps.

Her father was expected to try to greet her at Sydney Airport.

The former nursing student said in 2019 that she would never return to Australia as she feared being treated like a criminal, jailed and her son being taken away from her.

“It was my decision to come here to go away from where women are naked on the street. I don’t want my son to be raised around that,” Safar told The Australian.

“I didn’t train or kill anyone. I just sat at home, and they will put me in jail, they will take my child off me. Why? I’m a Muslim.”

As the Coalition accused the government of failing to block the women from returning to Australia, Education Minister Jason Clare said he had faith in the Australian Federal Police’s ability to integrate the children into Australian society.

“They know what they’re doing. This is not their first rodeo,” Clare told the ABC’s News Breakfast.

“I trust in the words of the AFP commissioner yesterday, when she said that some of these women will be arrested when they arrive and others will be subject to further investigation.”

Clare said the children who had been stranded in the camps deserved a shot at a new life in Australia.

“Kids don’t get to choose who their parents are, and these children have seen the sorts of things that no child should ever be exposed to,” he said. “It’s going to take time for these children to reintegrate into Australian society.”

Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said the expected return of several ISIS brides into the state represented “an unacceptable threat to community safety and social cohesion”.

“The Victorian Liberals and Nationals believe any adult who has left Australia to align themselves with a barbaric terrorist organisation should not be welcomed back into our state,” Wilson said.

Gamel Kheir, secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, has branded the political debate over the return of 13 women and children with Islamic State links to Australia “disgusting”.

“I am not a defender of them, but I am a defender of the rule of law,” he said. “Throw them in jail if they are guilty, but they are Australian citizens and the law shouldn’t apply selectively. They have a right to return home.”

Kheir said the children who had been stranded in camps in northern Syria had played no part in where they ended up and deserved to be rehabilitated and start a new life in Australia.

“It is disgusting that politicians are seeking to make political mileage out of this. This issue has become an Islamophobic free-for-all,” he said.

Federal opposition defence spokesman James Paterson said: “I think many Australians will be disconcerted to know that these could be their neighbours next door.”

Paterson told Sky News: “The revelations that some of these people will be charged with criminal offences when they land in Australia is evidence why they should not have been granted passports and why they should have had temporary exclusion orders applied to protect our country. But Labor obviously secretly wanted these people back in the country, and they’ve got their wish today.”

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