VIII. CONCLUSIONS 120. This report documents the legal black hole and dire conditions in which European women and children are detained in ISIL associated camps in North East Syria. Like the terrorism suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay, these women and children are afforded no legal rights or protections and are subjected to inhumane and brutal conditions. The numbers are staggering: these camps hold more European children – most under five years old – than the entire population of Guantanamo Bay at its peak. The report makes clear that European States have taken a decision to manage the possible security risk that these women and children pose by leaving them in detention camps in North East Syria, and it is they alone who have the ability to end it. Yet instead of complying with their moral and legal obligations by repatriating their nationals, European States have adopted policies and practices that maintain the legal black hole in which these women and children find themselves. In some cases, they have taken steps to place these women and children further outside the law. 121. While European States claim that their security is best served by having these women and children detained by the Kurdish authorities in North East Syria, security experts have serious concerns about this policy. These security experts have stated that the real threat to state security comes from leaving people in a place where they are vulnerable to being radicalised to violence, especially in the case of minors, and where their dire situation can serve as a recruitment tool and rallying cry for ISIL and ISIL inspired groups worldwide. The most effective, and in fact only viable long-term solution, is for European States to safely manage the return of these women and children, using the same law and policies under which they have dealt with returnees from Syria and Iraq since the beginning of the conflict. 122. European States rightly and roundly condemned the arbitrary detention of terrorism suspects by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. But European States are now re-enacting the United States’ mistakes in Syria. European States have the means to bring this disaster to an end, and cannot ignore their responsibilities any further. Their refusal to do so is nothing short of a moral and legal aberration and poses a significant long-term security risk. 123. RSI calls on the European States the subject of this report to repatriate their women and children from the camps in North East Syria without further delay. 45 RIGHTS & SECURITY INTERNATIONAL