An Australian mother and daughter “kept a female slave” after traveling to Syria in 2014 to support the Islamic State (ISIS) group, police said yesterday as the pair faced charges in Melbourne.
The women returned to Australia on Thursday after years spent in a Syrian detention camp, where they were stranded after the Islamic State’s collapse
Counterterrorism forces arrested Kawsar Ahmad, 53, and her daughter Zeinab, 31, immediately after their Qatar Airways flight landed at Melbourne International Airport. Police accused the women of “crimes against humanity” while living under Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate.
Photo: AP
Kawsar Ahmad was “complicit in the purchase of a female slave for US$10,000,” Australian Federal Police said.
She faces a raft of charges including “enslavement” and engaging in “slave trading.”
Her daughter Zeinab Ahamd had “knowingly kept a female slave in the home,” police said.
A bail hearing for the women is to be held in Melbourne on Monday.
The mother and daughter were detained by Kurdish forces in 2019 as Islamic State’s caliphate crumbled. They were held in Syria’s notorious Roj camp for years before their repatriation to Australia.
In total, four women and their nine children flew back to Australia from Syria on Thursday.
Janai Safar, 32, was arrested after touching down in Sydney with her son.
She was charged with entering a restricted area and joining a “terrorist organization.”
Safar traveled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who was a member of the Islamic State group, police said.
She too had spent years in a Syrian detention camp after the Islamic State was vanquished.
“She has a nine-year-old son. They have lived in truly horrific conditions in refugee camps for many years,” defense lawyer Michael Ainsworth told a court hearing.
Safar, who seemed somber as she appeared on screen from a prison in western Sydney, was refused bail.
A fourth woman traveling with the group was not arrested.
“One of the things that divides our society from the lawless barbarity of ISIS is that we believe in the rule of law,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. “I have absolutely zero sympathy for these people. I do have sympathy for the children, though, who are victims of [a] decision their parents have made.”
As the Islamic State rose to power in the early 2010s, Australia made it an offense to travel to strongholds such as Raqqa Province in Syria.
Hundreds of women from Western nations were lured to the Middle East as the Islamic State group gained prominence in the early 2010s, in many cases following husbands who had signed up as jihadist fighters.
Australia, Canada, the UK and others are still grappling with how to treat citizens stranded after the group collapsed.
Widely known as the “ISIS brides,” the case has stirred strong feelings in Australia.
The Australian Human Rights Commission in March urged the government to help repatriate 34 women and children stuck in Syria’s notorious Roj detention camp, but others have accused the women of turning their back on Australia and believe they should be left to face the consequences.
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