The young Iraqi woman, Awatef Masoud, is looking forward to returning to her village in the western Anbar province after 3 years spent in Syria, but the Al-Jadaa Community Rehabilitation Center is a necessary stop before that, to exclude any extremist thought and provide psychological support.
Like all the residents of the center - which is part of a camp housing the displaced and is located south of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq - Awatif Masoud, 35, was in the al-Hol camp in eastern Syria, which includes Iraqi and foreign families of members of the Islamic State.
About 30,000 Iraqis are still stuck in the al-Hol camp in eastern Syria, including 20,000 children, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Migration.
But their return raises a sensitive problem, which is reconciliation in a country where families accused of being linked to the Islamic State - which wreaked havoc in cities and villages and committed massacres - are still rejected in their areas of origin.
Awatef, whose features seemed to be tired, has been living in the center for 4 months.
"Here, organizations give us psychological support when they notice that we are feeling sad," she says. "There are activities such as knitting and making sweets."
"My children go to the public school" in the camp, and "they have started exams," she says.
When asked about her association with the organization, Awatef said, "My husband's family was in the organization, yes, but now, I don't know."
As for her husband, the organization killed him.
3 of Awatef's children stayed with their father's parents in Syria.
"Now I am waiting for my children to return. Then I want to go back to my family in Anbar," she says.
Awatef awaits the return of her children from Syria.
Then she wants to go back to her family in Anbar (French).
Attached tents
The tents that shelter 452 families who have been returned so far are adjoined around it.
To get there, it is necessary to pass a security checkpoint at the entrance to the center, which is located on the outskirts of the town, which is adjacent to the middle of barren land.
Entry without permission from the authorities is prohibited.
The camp is adjacent to the sprawling concrete houses on the outskirts of the town, in whose streets there are pictures of soldiers killed during the battles with the organization.
At the center, some women admit that their husbands or relatives are linked to the Islamic State, while others deny any connection.
Khaled Abdel Karim, director of the Department of Migration and Displacement in Nineveh, explains that "this center is not for the purpose of detaining and confining families, but rather a transit process."
International and local organizations are also working in the rehabilitation process.
Teams from the Ministry of Immigration are helping families obtain legal papers.
In parallel, “we have cooperation with the national security team,” according to Abdel Karim, and “they have mobile teams in order to take questionnaires… and see if families have mixed ideas,” in reference to extremism, in cooperation “with a group of researchers specializing in psychological support.”
In the center, "there is a team specialized in how to address the stigma of ISIS, and we have some families whose members were affiliated with the organization. In the end, the Iraqi government is the godfather of this citizen, so the paternalistic view was that they must be treated and returned," according to Abdul Karim.
He admits that some families "were affected by this thought, but the number is very small."
He explains, "In our daily communication with families... we did not find any case of rejection of all... social activities or even the presence of women with men... as well as children and clothes. There are no messages that there is an extremist ideology."
In the tents, the neighbors lead a semi-normal life, exchanging visits, while their children form friendships.
From the rooms, the sounds of sewing machines shrieked, as women were busy working on the seams.
On the outskirts of the tents, there is a small playground for sports activities for children, boys and girls.
reconciliation
While awaiting the return to their areas, and as part of the rehabilitation and preparation for integration, family visits are held every week to prepare their return.
So far, more than 100 families have been returned in 5 batches, "both to Anbar, a small part to Salah al-Din and another part to Nineveh", after coordination with the security authorities and local authorities, according to Abdul Karim.
In order to guarantee the return of these families, the approval of the local tribal leaders must be obtained.
According to the World Bank in a report issued last January, "families believed to be linked to ISIS find their return halted due to security factors, society's rejection and stigma, and they are exposed to retaliatory attacks."
Also, "It is common for residents in areas of return to fear that the return of families who they believe have supported ISIS, or are still, will destabilize their community and create new risks to security and social relations."
The report addresses 8 reconciliation agreements between 2015 and 2020 to allow the return of the displaced.
He points out, in particular, that "the indirect representation of the displaced through the tribal sheikhs allowed negotiations that would not have taken place otherwise."
Shaima Ali, 41, hopes to return soon to her area in the border town of Al-Qaim with Syria, but says, "Now we are waiting for the people to accept us. They say you are ISIS. It is true that I do not deny, my husband was a member of the organization, but if my husband is in the organization Have I become like him?"
"If they told me now that you can go out, I would have gone out," she added.
She says, "After 5 years of displacement, I am now concerned with the fate of my daughters. Perhaps my future has been lost, but I do not want their future to be lost either."