A Swedish woman who joined the Islamic State organization in Syria was sentenced to six years in prison on Friday March 4 for letting her son enlist as a child soldier in the jihadist group.
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The 49-year-old woman was convicted of war crimes and violation of international law “for not preventing his son, when he was 12 to 15 years old, from being recruited as a child soldier by IS in the armed conflict in Syria“, said the Stockholm court in a press release. The teenager, named Joan, died during the conflict in 2017, at the age of 16. The mother “failed to act adequately to prevent” recruitment, “nor wanted to prevent it, his role as a child soldier was in accordance with his convictionsto her, the court held.
This is the first time that a case of recruitment of a child soldier, that is to say under Swedish law under the age of 15, has been tried in the Nordic country. Most Swedes or Swedish residents who joined ISIS, estimated at around 300 in total, cannot be prosecuted for their mere association with the jihadist organization, as Swedish law punishing this crime was passed after the wave of departures . Convictions therefore remain rare, when other charges can be brought. The first one “ghostof IS convicted in Sweden in March 2021 for taking her son with her to the Levant.