Mothers, terrorists, or victims? The framing of Dutch and Belgian women in the Syrian camps and the question of repatriation in news media

Abstract

Following the fall of ISIS in March 2019, thousands of women affiliated with the movement, along with their children, were brought to Kurdish-controlled camps in north-eastern Syria. Since then, an international, political, and juridical debate raged on regarding the repatriation of Western female detainees in the camps and their children. This paper aims to evaluate how Dutch and Belgian women in the Syrian camps have been framed by their national news media in the context of political discussions on their repatriation. Our qualitative framing analysis identifies six distinct framing packages: the criminal, terrorist, victim, regret, mother, and bad parent frames. Moreover, our analysis highlights how the frames, and their intersection with different modes of othering, shifted as the debate moved to the question of their repatriation. Finally, we also discuss differences in the framing, argumentation, and frame advocates between the two contexts.