(CNN)Kurdish news channel K24 this week broadcast an interview with Marlin Stivani Nivarlain
a 16-year-old Swedish girl who had just been rescued from ISIS in
northern Iraq. In the video clip, Nivarlain tells the interviewer that her time with ISIS was "really a hard life" and explains how she went about trying to secure her escape.
Interviews
with female ISIS defectors are rare and, as such, news outlets around
the world have been quick to cover the possible implications of the
teenager's rescue. Amid all this, a debate has emerged on social media comments forums as to whether Nivarlain, who is white, is being treated differently because of her ethnicity.
The
argument is that, if it wasn't for the color of her skin, she'd be
depicted as a terrorist by the media, and immediately thrown in jail. In
seeking to determine whether there is any truth to these assertions, it
helps to look at the recent past, which unambiguously says otherwise.
Generally speaking, the way Western law
enforcement agencies treat supporters of ISIS -- whether they are female
or male, have attempted to join or failed to join, have remained with
the group or left of their own accord -- correlates to their individual
stories and not their skin color, as is being claimed.
Take, for example, the three teenaged girls who disappeared from Aurora, Colorado in
October 2014 before being intercepted at Frankfurt Airport in a joint
German-US operation. Upon their return to the US, they were able to go
home without being charged for terrorism-related offenses.
We
don't know their names, but what we do know is that the three girls
were not Caucasian: two were of Somali descent, and one Sudanese.
READ: How ISIS recruits children, then kills them
In
contrast Shannon Maureen Conley, a 19-year-old Caucasian convert to
Islam -- again from Colorado -- was arrested a few months earlier in
July 2014, prior to getting on a Turkey-bound plane in Denver. Now she
is serving four years in jail for material support of a terrorist organization.
Like
Conley, the Aurora girls were radicalized and, like Conley, they had
posted their pro-ISIS views on Facebook. However, the judicial response
to each of these cases differed greatly.
Beyond this, there are numerous other
instances of non-Caucasian women who left ISIS and were treated (for the
most part) as victims, and not terrorists. Among them is Congolese-born
Sophie Kasiki, who was, upon her return to Paris,
interrogated by French intelligence officers and held in jail for two
months. Today, she is facing charges for kidnapping her child -- but not
terrorism.
By
examining the big picture it becomes clear that, for most Western
security services, questions of ethnicity are redundant when it comes to
assessing a suspect's potential threat.
READ: How teen girl got free of terror recruiters
Instead, individual cases are dealt with on an individual basis -- and rightly so. Indeed, British interior minister Theresa May has indicated that the UK
will deal with former members of jihadist organizations, whatever their
gender, on a case-by-case basis, potentially showing leniency to some.
This
is important because, in doing so, governments may be able to tap into
an unlikely asset in the war against ISIS: defectors who want to (and
can) relate their stories of disillusionment.
Just
this week, the US-based Carter Center held a meeting that brought
together religious scholars, community leaders, academics and
policymakers from around the world to discuss how to effectively
challenge ISIS propaganda. One of their key points of consensus was that
those who leave the organization behind have great potential as weapons in the war of ideas -- indeed, "they should be viewed as an opportunity."
Such a position is by no means novel: one
of the most commonly accepted principles in the countering violent
extremism community is that those who leave can play a crucial role in
de-radicalization. Whether it's in the U.S., Europe, or Middle East,
talking to someone who has had real-world experience in an extremist
organization resonates with people -- especially young people -- much
more than lectures given by those who have never "been in their shoes."
READ: What is ISIS' appeal for young people?
It
is critical that law enforcement agencies continue to take an extremely
nuanced approach towards dealing with people that leave groups like
ISIS.
While
it may at first seem to be the more intuitive option, we mustn't simply
write them all off as terrorists and throw them in jail.