Let­ta Tayler and Jo Beck­er

This week, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley re­port­ed­ly made a com­mit­ment that scores of Trinida­di­ans de­tained in un­con­scionable con­di­tions in north­east Syr­ia and Iraq have wait­ed four years to hear: the Gov­ern­ment will bring them home. The Prime Min­is­ter is mak­ing the right choice moral­ly, legal­ly, and strate­gi­cal­ly.

To be sure, bring­ing back these de­tained Trinida­di­ans is a sen­si­tive is­sue. They are, af­ter all, Is­lam­ic State (ISIS) sus­pects and their fam­i­ly mem­bers. But as our re­search found, at least 56 of these 90 or more de­tained Tri­nis are chil­dren who nev­er chose to live un­der ISIS.

Aban­doned in locked camps and de­ten­tion cen­tres rife with dis­ease and death, in con­di­tions that may amount to tor­ture, they are be­ing col­lec­tive­ly pun­ished for their par­ents’ de­ci­sions.

We have al­so found that many chil­dren from oth­er coun­tries who were repa­tri­at­ed from the camps in north­east Syr­ia are far­ing re­mark­ably well. Most are in school, mak­ing friends, and en­gag­ing in typ­i­cal child­hood ac­tiv­i­ties. There is every rea­son to as­sume that Tri­ni chil­dren can do the same.

In north­east Syr­ia, where near­ly all the Trinida­di­ans are held, not one Tri­ni has been charged with any crime, or even had ac­cess to a ju­di­cial au­thor­i­ty to chal­lenge their de­ten­tion. That’s un­law­ful.

In Iraq, four Trinida­di­an women de­tained in a squalid prison with their sev­en chil­dren have been con­vict­ed of ter­ror­ism-re­lat­ed charges, but in courts with a record of flawed pros­e­cu­tions and us­ing con­fes­sions ex­tract­ed through tor­ture. This rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns about whether their tri­als were fair.

Com­mend­ably, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley’s repa­tri­a­tion com­mit­ment, at least as re­layed through a new, high-lev­el team that the Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed to co­or­di­nate with de­tainees’ fam­i­lies, ap­peared to in­clude the de­tained men.

With the no­table ex­cep­tion of the Unit­ed States, most of the 39 coun­tries that have repa­tri­at­ed some or many of their na­tion­als from north­east Syr­ia have brought home on­ly chil­dren and women.

On­ly about 13 Trinida­di­an men are be­lieved to be de­tained in north­east Syr­ia. Of those, on­ly sev­en trav­elled to the re­gion as adults, while the rest were tak­en there as chil­dren by their rel­a­tives, fam­i­ly mem­bers told us. That’s a man­age­able num­ber.

Once home, Trinida­di­ans who trav­elled to Syr­ia or Iraq as adults can be pros­e­cut­ed if war­rant­ed. Any­one con­sid­ered a se­ri­ous threat can be mon­i­tored if ap­pro­pri­ate, pro­vid­ed the mea­sures meet in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal stan­dards.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­point­ment of a three-per­son team as the di­rect con­tact for de­tainees’ fam­i­lies is an­oth­er pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment.

Sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers we met in Port-of-Spain in Feb­ru­ary ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with the Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee, a mul­ti-agency task force as­sem­bled in 2018 to craft a repa­tri­a­tions plan.

The Gov­ern­ment should move swift­ly to trans­late its promise in­to ac­tion. One key step will be com­mit­ting to a prompt repa­tri­a­tions time­line. An­oth­er key step will be for the Gov­ern­ment to com­mu­ni­cate di­rect­ly with the pub­lic on this im­por­tant is­sue, rather than leav­ing it to the li­ai­son team to share sig­nif­i­cant up­dates, as it did on March 27.

A third is es­tab­lish­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion ser­vices for re­turn­ing Trinida­di­ans who have suf­fered se­vere trau­ma un­der ISIS, dur­ing their de­ten­tion since ear­ly 2019 by US-backed, an­ti-ISIS forces, or both.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers of the de­tainees told us that they stand ready to help.

“We are will­ing to as­sist the gov­ern­ment in any way pos­si­ble to bring an end to the suf­fer­ing of our rel­a­tives,” said Ra­heema Khan, whose sis­ter and six nieces and nephews are held in north­east Syr­ia.

Unit­ed Na­tions au­thor­i­ties, as well as many mil­i­tary of­fi­cials and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts, share our as­sess­ment that repa­tri­a­tions are the on­ly durable so­lu­tion.

The longer these de­tainees lan­guish in north­east Syr­ia, they warn, the greater the like­li­hood that ISIS will try to re­cruit the chil­dren and break de­tainees out of the camps and pris­ons there.

Gov­ern­ments have an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect cit­i­zens abroad if they can take rea­son­able steps to end their risks of death, tor­ture, or fla­grant due process vi­o­la­tions.

But aid work­ers and lo­cal au­thor­i­ties tell us that at least 42,000 for­eign­ers from 60 coun­tries re­main un­law­ful­ly de­tained in north­east Syr­ia, in­clud­ing the Trinida­di­ans.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley of­ten re­minds the world that Trinidad and To­ba­go is “small but not in­signif­i­cant.”

By bring­ing home all its de­tained na­tion­als for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, rein­te­gra­tion, and pros­e­cu­tions of adults as ap­pro­pri­ate, pri­ori­tis­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble, in­clud­ing chil­dren, Trinidad and To­ba­go could be a glob­al leader on re­solv­ing this mass de­ten­tion cri­sis.

Let­ta Tayler and Jo Beck­er are co-au­thors of the Feb­ru­ary 2023 Hu­man Rights Watch re­port, “Trinidad and To­ba­go: Bring Home Na­tion­als from North­east Syr­ia.” Tayler is an as­so­ciate cri­sis and con­flict di­rec­tor at Hu­man Rights Watch and Beck­er is the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s chil­dren’s rights ad­vo­ca­cy di­rec­tor. Twit­ter: @let­tatayler @jobeck­erhrw.