The women of IS: Part three
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What next for the Syrian detention camps and their residents? After the fall of the so-called “caliphate”, tens of thousands of women and children from around the world - followers of the Islamic State group as well as its victims - ended up in a handful of camps in north-eastern Syria. Once run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, those camps are now in the process of being closed down by the Syrian authorities. This series from the Global Jigsaw explores the trauma that led to the prolonged existence of the camps and what the future might hold for their residents.
In part three, we discuss justice and rehabilitation, as well as where the latest dramatic events leave the story.
Contributors: Mina al-Lami, Barry Marston, Clare Denning, Samia Hosny, Mohammed al-Jumaily, Bryn Windsor Producer: Kriszta Satori, Elchin Suleymanov Presenter: Krassi Ivanova Twigg Music: Pete Cunningham
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:10.6 | At the end of February, the Syrian government announced the closure of the notorious Al-Holkamp, |
| 0:19.8 | that for seven years held families of the Islamic State Group. |
| 0:25.6 | It was just weeks after it took control of the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic forces. |
| 0:34.6 | A video circulated showing the camp being empty, with parts of it engulfed in flames. |
| 0:42.9 | A fraud chapter had come to an end. |
| 0:46.1 | The next one is wrapped in darkness. |
| 0:49.3 | What happened exactly no one knows because we didn't have any access there. |
| 0:53.7 | The situation was chaotic. |
| 0:55.7 | There was a call for IS sympathizers in Syria to take their cars or motorbikes and head to |
| 1:03.2 | Valholt camp to help transport these women as well as to shelter them in their houses. |
| 1:08.8 | There is lack of clarity over how many people were relocated, |
| 1:14.5 | how many people fled. |
| 1:16.8 | The international community was so keen to make sure that they don't leave the camp, |
| 1:21.3 | and yet they just left in a very abrupt, sudden, chaotic, transitional phase, and we don't know where they are. |
| 1:31.5 | In the final episode of this series, we take stock of how the recent power shift in Syria |
| 1:37.2 | has thrown this geopolitical jigsaw into the air. |
| 1:40.9 | We ask what happens to the detainees once they return home, how countries handle |
| 1:47.1 | justice for the perpetrators and rehabilitation for the victims. And where could those fugitives |
| 1:53.4 | be hiding? Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 2:03.3 | I'm Krassi Ivanovich, and this is the Global Jigsaw from BBC Monitoring, |
| 2:08.2 | where we look at the world through the lens of its media, |
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