Were the brides of Islamic State cloistered housewives or participants in atrocities?
BEIRUT - Thousands of foreign-born women left their homes and lives to join Islamic State and marry its fighters. But now that the militant group's so-called caliphate is reduced to crumbled masonry and scorched rebar, many of them want to return home.
Shamima Begum was a teenage schoolgirl in east London when she left home to join Islamic State; Hoda Muthana, an Alabama-born college student; Kimberly Gwen Polman, a 46-year-old single mom in Canada studying to be a children's advocate. Now they're held in a Kurdish-controlled prison in the hinterlands of eastern Syria, asking to be let back into their home countries.
The women branded "ISIS brides," using initials for militant group, have become a focal point of fierce debate for governments worldwide: What are states' responsibilities toward these women?
A central question in that debate
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