Shoura

When you ask children of Islamic State militants what they remember about their fathers, they don’t talk about crimes or extremism. Usually they remember things like outings for ice cream, or when their dads played with them.

Now, their fathers are all in hiding, in jail or dead. Tens of thousands of children in Iraq and Syria are growing up in desolate camps, often stigmatized as the children of terrorists.

Some people say this isolation will breed radicalism and the next generation of extremist militants. Many also see this as a humanitarian problem, with women and children who committed no crimes now perpetually homeless, impoverished and entirely dependent on aid organizations and the state for survival.

But in Shoura, they say, it doesn’t have to be this way.