A 15-year-old girl from east London, together with two school friends, secretly travels to Syria via Turkey. She has used a passport stolen from her sister. They have been radicalised and groomed, hold extremist views and wish to support ISIL and the caliphate. Within ten days of her arrival, she has been married to an ISIL fighter much older than her. Over succeeding years she gives birth to three children, all of whom die in infancy. She is no longer with her husband, who is believed to be in detention somewhere. She resides in a refugee camp, where life is challenging and not without risk.
The young woman, Shamima Begum, was born in the UK and had British citizenship from birth. She grew up in the Bangladeshi community in Bethnal Green. There are grounds to believe there were failures by the local authority, the police and her school that otherwise might have prevented her departure. There is a credible case that she has been trafficked for sexual
