REPATRIATE
THE CHILDREN
- SWEDEN
Contact us at info@repatriatethechildren.org or Telegram @RepatriateTheChildren
Children can never be held accountable for their parents actions. When will they be brought home?
Repatriate the Children is a children’s rights organization existing to raise awareness of children being detained in northeast Syria, and to contribute to knowledge-based decision making where humanitarian principles, rule of law, and global security are united.
RTC operates with two autonomous national branches - Sweden and Denmark - and has been an integral actor in the first instances of repatriations from the camps in Northeast Syria.
We condemn ISIS ideology, acts and everything that is linked to violent extremism. Children must be protected from indoctrination and radicalization to violent extremist movements and environments. Children have the right to life, survival and development. All foreign governments need to take responsibility for their citizens.
Repatriate The Children combines technical expertise, operational experience, and coordination capacity to support governments and other stakeholders in responding to the humanitarian, legal, and security challenges associated with the repatriation file. Guided by the best interests of the child, RTC develops practical, context-sensitive solutions that promote protection, stability, justice, sustainable reintegration and counters violent extremism.
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Since 2020, RTC has engaged with affected families, civil society, governments, and international partners across multiple countries. Operating as a civil society complement to state efforts, RTC provides strategic advice, technical expertise, and operational support on repatriation, reception, reintegration, and post-detention recovery.
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Over the past few years, many families have been repatriated to a range of countries, offering a growing body of experience of reception of returnees. These lessons can support the development of more coordinated, child protections informed, and sustainable approaches to reintegration and rehabilitation.
Drawing from experiences, RTC can provide a framework of best practices to states and communities in managing returnees’ reception, with emphasis on protecting children, maintaining family unity, and preventing future radicalization.
It is a matter not only of justice, law, and human dignity, but also an obligation to relieve Syrians of this war legacy as they rebuild their society.
Bringing children home both upholds their rights and protects them and society from the threat of violent extremism.
Prolonged child detention under these conditions does not contain or prevent risk. Rather, it poses a dual security concern: the immediate threat to children forced to grow up in constant danger, and the longer-term threat to society if and when these children are exploited and recruited by extremist predators.
The situation in Camp Roj demonstrate that security and an international commitment to children’s rights and international legal standards are inextricably linked: The erosion of the latter precipitates the erosion of the former.
© Rena Effendi