Shamima Begum stripped of UK citizenship

Shamima Begum has lost her final appeal and bid against the government's decision to remove her British citizenship and remains barred from returning to the UK.

Ms Begum, born in 1999, left the country at age 15 to join the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Her citizenship was stripped on national security grounds in 2019 on the basis that she was a “citizen of bangladesh by descent.” However Bangladesh said that this was not the case and that she would not be allowed entry into the county. Her lawyers argued that the decision was unlawful because there was credible reason to believe she was a victim of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, but the Special Immigration Appeals Commission decided this evidence was irrelevant to her decision to leave the UK.

In August 2024, Ms Begum's legal team said they plan to petition the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to hear her case.

In recent years, the UK has stripped more people of their citizenship than any other country apart from Bahrain, according to a report released by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.

The right to a nationality is a fundamental human right. It implies the right of each individual to acquire, change and retain a nationality. If a person does not have a nationality, it may be impossible for them to go to school, see a doctor, get a job, open a bank account, or even get married. Millions of people around the world are in this situation; they are 'stateless'.

A stateless person is ‘a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’

According to the Law Society UK, in considering whether an adult trafficked victim has been compelled to commit a crime, prosecutors should consider whether any of the means of trafficking (above) have been employed so that the victim has effectively lost the ability to consent to his/her actions or to act with free will.

As Shamima Begum was a minor at the time, the implications of the above are crucial.

For further information see the following accounts from the BBC about Shamina’s case.