Thursday, 3 December 2015

What more can parents do?

Ines is a young Muslim girl aged 16, from a fairly ordinary French family, devout but not radical. About a year ago Ines started taking an interest in the situation in Syria, mainly via the internet, spending hours alone in her room. This alone is not unusual for a teenager, but other worrying signs were appearing. She talked with friends about going to Syria to marry a French man who was there and tried to leave home. She told her mother that she had "black ideas"  and wanted to die. The parents were concerned that her ideas about jihadis would lead to something serious and reported this to the police. Ines was the subject of an "S notice" -someone who could be a threat to national security.
Her parents removed her computer from her room and refused to allow her to keep a mobile phone. Her mother accompanied her to school and met her in the evening.
A few days ago, after borrowing a mobile phone from a friend, Ines "escaped" by climbing through a window The mother had  found a detailed itinerary of how the girl intended to get to Syria via Holland and called the police. They advised her to contact the prefecture.
Fortunately Ines was found 24 hours later and re-united with her family. One wonders how these susceptible teenagers can be protected from exploitation; Ines sounds like a girl with more problems than teenage romanticism - perhaps psychological help might be more useful than an S notice.
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