Clad in a flowery hijab of pastel and dark hues, Mawar*, 49, sorts packages of homemade fried chips into paper boxes before storing freshly squeezed bitter melon juice in the freezer. Her youngest son, a barefoot 10-year-old sporting a Spanish national soccer team t-shirt, darts in and out of the tiled porch of their food shop. Outside, where lush palm leaves droop over parked motorbikes, he chuckles with his friends as four of them huddle around an iPad, eyes fixed on the glowing screen.
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They seem to lead ordinary, unremarkable lives—yet, beneath the surface lies a hidden history their neighbors don’t know.
Budi* hasn’t told any of his friends in the neighborhood or at school that he has been to Turkey and Syria. That’s a secret his mother has kept from most people, and even he, though unaware of the full implications, understands that revealing this information could have dire consequences for his family. (*Mawar and Budi are pseudonyms granted for security concerns.)
Mawar and her three sons left Indonesia for Syria in mid-2015 and stayed there for nearly two years. That was a time when the Islamic State militant group—also known as ISIS—had declared its “caliphate” in large parts of Iraq and Syria, attracting tens of thousands of fighters and supporters from around the world.
Fast forward a decade, the extremist group no longer controls any land and most of its prominent leaders have died. But thousands of alleged former fighters, women, and children have lingered in Syria’s Al Hol and Roj camps since the fall of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2019.
Rights organizations have called on countries around the world to repatriate their nationals, but some governments fear a public backlash and potential security threats from individuals radicalised by ISIS—a group that, at its peak, beheaded civilians and enslaved thousands of women and, although significantly weakened, has continued to recruit members and recently claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in countries such as Russia and Mozambique. On New Year’s Day, a man who pledged allegiance to the extremist group drove into a crowd killing 14 people in New Orleans.
As Indonesian authorities are expected to undertake the first ever large-scale repatriation of women and children from camps in Syria this year, TIME spoke with Mawar, whose life was upended by ISIS, about the challenges of returning to her home country and what it means to be granted a second chance.
“I thought it would be easy to live there [in Syria], that everything was guaranteed, like education, health,” Mawar said in an exclusive interview, recalling the days when she first started reading about the “caliphate” declaration on her mobile phone. “My extended family also shared posts directly with me that showed life in Syria… So I got motivated.” Mawar, whose parents were farmers, believed ISIS offered a better future for her three sons, now aged between 10 and 25 years old. She imagined a land for the “chosen ones”—“a peaceful place.”
Soon, Mawar was on a plane from Jakarta to Istanbul, along with several family members. A three-hour journey on foot across the Syrian border in the summer of 2015 led them into the hands of Islamic State militants, who drove the group to Raqqa, once described as the “caliphate’s capital.”
But it didn’t take long before Mawar’s dreams of greater equality were shattered.
She said her male and female relatives were separated. Her children were denied the opportunity to attend school. Except for occasional trips to the market to buy groceries, Mawar’s sons spent most of their time within the confines of a sparsely furnished third-floor flat, which only had electricity for about an hour a day. The house, with its drab, grime-covered walls and mattresses strewn across the floor for about 10 women and children to sleep on, became their entire world.
“It was not what I expected at all,” said Mawar, a woman with a round face and delicate features.
The apparent monotony of their daily lives was only interrupted by loud sounds piercing through the walls. “I saw no war directly between ISIS and other groups, but there were many explosions,” Mawar recalled. The image of a wailing baby, spared from the bombing that claimed his parents in the apartment across the street, continues to haunt her. “I also got really traumatized by the way I was walking to the market and there would be bombs falling in front and behind me,” Mawar said, her hands and arms tracing wide arcs in the air as if to encompass the chaos she witnessed.
Reeling with a profound sense of disappointment, Mawar said her family sent a letter to the ISIS militants ruling the city protesting against the living conditions and even requested an audience with the de facto government established by the extremist group. As a result, they faced police harassment.
About six months after arriving in Syria, she and her family started looking for ways to escape. They tried twice without success. Only on their third attempt did a smuggler facilitate her family’s departure, which included 17 people in total. He charged them over US$4,000—about four times the Indonesian annual minimum wage in 2017.
After dodging gunfire, Mawar said they walked in pitch darkness to a border camp between Syria and Iraq. The Indonesian embassy in Iraq eventually assisted with their repatriation. Mawar said she could only breathe a sigh of relief when she was sitting on the plane from Bagdad, via Doha, to Jakarta. “I was very happy with teary eyes,” she said. “At the same time, I started thinking about what would happen when we arrived in Indonesia.”
The world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation is believed to have seen more of its citizens join the Islamic State than all other Southeast Asian countries combined. According to authorities, from 2013 to 2017, over 2,150 Indonesians traveled to Syria and Iraq. Research by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, an independent think tank, showed that some left to fight against the now-deposed Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while an idealized Islamic life under the “caliphate” declared in June 2014 attracted many families. Some were deported before they could reach their final destination, others killed in the war, others died of disease and even starvation. Hundreds have been kept in detention following the jihadist group’s territorial defeat in 2019.
In May, a National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT) official said, according to local media, that at least 375 Indonesians had been identified as in need of repatriation in the Al Hol and Roj camps—most of them women and children.
Mawar is grateful she was given the chance to return home and avoid the dire conditions of the camps. Looking back, she insists that she was deceived, describing herself and her children as victims. “I wanted to go to Syria because of all the propaganda, but what I found was something very different,” she said, as her voice sharpened. “It feels like it was a scam to me. The movement is a scam. I thought I was joining a great empire, but it was a big lie and a mistake.”
Mawar argued that the extremist group cannot be confused with her religion: “ISIS is not Islam and Islam is not ISIS.”
After returning to Indonesia, Mawar went through a government-run rehabilitation program for several weeks. She now hopes others are also able to find a new path.
In a December press conference, the head of the BNPT, Eddy Hartono, said that Indonesia has undertaken efforts to bring home some of its citizens detained in Syrian camps. “We have agreed to repatriate them, prioritizing women and children,” he said. Hartono said that there were standard procedures in place and that a few families had previously been taken to a rehabilitation center in Sentul, West Java, where they were psychologically assessed, before being moved to centers managed by the Ministry of Social Affairs, and eventually reintegrated into local communities.
According to an unpublished NGO report seen exclusively by TIME, 39 Indonesian women and children were expected to return to Indonesia in January, in what would be the first large-scale repatriation of Indonesian nationals from camps in Syria. The group, which was vetted by Indonesian authorities, included 16 adult women and 23 minors, some of whom were born in Syria.
But recent events in the Middle East have complicated the government’s repatriation plans.
Noor Huda Ismail, founder of the Institute for International Peace Building in Indonesia, said that bringing more women and children from Syria should only be a matter of time, noting it was a priority for Prabowo Subianto, President of the world’s third-largest democracy since October.
However, there have been delays following the collapse of Assad’s regime in December. “Initially, Jakarta was going to work with Damascus, but with the change in leadership we don’t know what may happen,” Ismail said.
A Jakarta-based BNPT official told TIME that, as of early January, Indonesian authorities were trying to find a safe route for the women and children waiting to be repatriated. “Considering what is happening in Syria, we are still planning the best and safest way to bring our citizens,” he said. The same official said construction of a new national center for deradicalization had just started last month in Jakarta.
In the wake of the Syrian government overthrow, clashes have intensified between Turkish-backed rebel groups and the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces guarding the detention facilities in northeastern Syria, where foreign nationals affiliated with ISIS have been kept. “It’s a time when everybody’s life is in danger, especially given the uncertainty in the northeast,” said Sidney Jones, senior adviser to the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict. “But even if it’s more important than ever to try and bring people home, it’s also more difficult than ever.”
According to an Amnesty International report released in April, about 11,500 men, 14,500 women, and 30,000 children were held in at least 27 detention facilities and two camps in Syria. The rights group has called on nations to repatriate their citizens, arguing that detainees from over 70 countries have endured inhumane conditions, including torture and gender-based violence. Experts said that women seeking to leave the camps have reported facing threats and aggression from pro-ISIS individuals.
Although many governments have been reluctant to take them back, some have increased their efforts. At the end of last month, Iraq announced that it had repatriated 360 nationals from the Al Hol camp.
The Trump administration’s recent freeze on U.S. foreign-aid has heightened both the challenge and urgency, causing concerns among humanitarian workers who fear the camps’ conditions may deteriorate. Some also worry about ISIS attacks on the camps and even potential internal riots due to food shortages, which could be exploited by the extremist group.
Adlini Sjah, an associate research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said that “after years of preparation,” Indonesia currently has a more “favourable environment” domestically to receive returnees, including a “sympathetic political climate” and increased “readiness.” Although it’s impossible to eliminate all the risks associated with repatriating former ISIS supporters, she said that the country has built up sufficient “experience” as well as “resources.”
Sjah also agrees with the prioritization of women, children, and teenagers—before they are further exposed to radicalization and groomed to carry out attacks.
Jones noted that the rehabilitation and reintegration of Indonesians coming not only from Syria, but also from conflicts in Afghanistan and the Philippines in recent years have been “very successful.” In an effort to counter violent extremism, the Indonesian government has supported programs that provide former militants with vocational skills and employment opportunities.
The security analyst said those who have been selected to return to Indonesia would not be on the list if the government wasn’t convinced they are willing to make a better life for themselves.
Provided they are indeed able to reach their home country, Jones said, “I think they are going to be fine.”
But simply getting home doesn’t mean returnees won’t face further challenges. Determined to achieve financial independence, Mawar set up her own food vendor business. “I started from zero and with no knowledge… My chips were quite oily initially,” she laughed, recalling her early experiments with spinach, bitter melon, and sambal.
In 2018, Mawar moved with her children to a neighborhood in West Java, where they didn’t know anyone. Now, she has two big freezers and a fully equipped kitchen where she crafts and packages about 300 bags of her signature chips each month. The beige walls of her shop are adorned with four golden frames showcasing her entrepreneurial certificates. Despite struggling financially, she is proud of being able to pay for both her shop and the house next door.
In the neighborhood, Mawar is known for selling chips and little else. “Only the local government in the village knows my past,” she said, while sitting on a long dark wooden bench in her shop.
Mawar still takes precautions, such as avoiding being photographed because she fears it might draw unwanted attention from her neighbors or others who may harass her family. She is also wary of speaking with journalists. “Some stories have described us as sexual slaves or children of terrorists,” she said, speaking of the portrayal of returnees more broadly in both local and international media. “Those headlines are so unfair,” she said. Mawar noted that such media coverage has had negative psychological impacts, particularly on younger people. “They will carry these labels for the rest of their lives.”
Leonie Jackson, assistant professor of international relations at Northumbria University in England, who analyzed 365 newspaper articles, concluded that media representations of women and girls who joined the extremist group in Syria had contributed to “the mood of indifference among policy-makers to the fate of British [ISIS] fighters and their families following the fall of the caliphate.”
Aware of discrimination faced by other returnees both in schools and workplaces, Mawar instructed her sons to “hold back” this part of their history. Her children, however, could hardly be happier about being back in Indonesia: “They much prefer it here,” Mawar said.
She hopes that the children of returnees and deportees will be able to grow up free from the stigma associated with terrorism. “The public needs to understand this issue better… it makes me feel sad to think that my family and other families may not have the same opportunities.”
Ismail, whose organization is launching several outreach activities this year, agreed that “the government has an important role in connecting different resources, but at the end of the day it is about the community and family.”
Unlike other extremist movements, he said, ISIS put a lot of effort into radicalizing women, who were often groomed via social media.
The terrorism expert said the turmoil in the Middle East, including the Israel-Hamas war and the Syrian leadership changes, could be a “catalyst” for radicalization. “I am not sure if radicalization is the right word. But there could be a rising desire for solidarity and belonging, particularly among the youth,” he said, noting that specific religious narratives and a lack of geopolitical understanding may amplify this risk. “And, of course, we cannot forget the role of technology with social media, AI, and deepfakes,” Ismail said.
In 2021, Indonesia authorities said that 85% of the country’s millennials had been exposed to extremism through social media. Last year alone, government agencies found about 180,994 online posts on platforms such as Telegram related to intolerance, extremism, and terrorism, which were predominantly propaganda from terrorist networks affiliated with ISIS and other groups. According to authorities, these were taken down or access was cut off.
So far, Jones said there were “no signs” of an increase in radicalism in Indonesia, the Philippines, or Malaysia as a direct result of recent events.
Back in Indonesia, where there have been no terrorist attacks over the past two years, Mawar has focused on providing a stable environment for her children. “I want to give them an Islamic education, but not an extremist one,” Mawar said, adding that she worries about their online exposure. She hopes they have enough tools to think critically about what is happening in the world.
Sometimes, she also finds herself preoccupied by the prospect of her sons’ eventual marriages and the potential for pointed inquiries from her future in-laws. If asked, she intends to be candid about their background. “What I did was wrong, but my God is forgiving,” she said.
As Mawar fully adjusts to her new reality, she generally avoids revisiting the darkest chapters of her past. Instead, she focuses on moving forward, dreaming of expanding her business and opening a small stall to sell meatball soup.
“I don’t want to just make money. I hope to be able to help marginalized, beggars, victims, and other people who, like me, may face discrimination,” Mawar said, as she shared her story with TIME. “I would like people to know that even someone with my past can have a future.”
Raquel Carvalho was the winner of the Women’s Stories In The Spotlight award about war and peace in Southeast Asia, issued by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and U.N. Women in 2023. The prize covered her reporting expenses for this story.
