Four siblings were so disturbed that they reported their parents to a youth counseling hotline for forcing them to watch ISIS beheading videos and preventing them to go to school. The British court has taken the children, whose ages range from 10 to 18, into custody.
The 18-year-old daughter emailed ChildLine to report her parents. She revealed that aside from being isolated and forced to watch the brutal videos to brainwash them, their parents also espoused homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-British views.
As a result of the emotional and physical abuse, the youngest sibling aged 10 reportedly developed learning disabilities and was left unable to speak. Reports did not name the parents, who originally come from Somalia and have been living in the Midlands in Britain, but they have denied the accusations.
ChildLine founder Dame Esther Rantzen, who applauded the eldest sibling for her courage to report her parents, described the siblings' case as "horrific" to the Family Division of the High Courts. The judge has ordered that the youngest sibling be brought to a residential care facility immediately, while long-term living arrangements will be made for the rest of the children.
"[Their parents] continue to deny the extent of complaints made of physical chastisement and of making the children watch inappropriate images of extremism on videos such as a beheading by Al-Shabaab, and of a rotting corpse," Ms Justice Russell stated in the court documents. "The children also said that [their parents] supported Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi [an ISIS leader]."
In 2016, ChildLine reported the rising numbers of kids as young as nine years old who call their hotline about anxiety, insomnia and panic attacks relating to ISIS fears. The service logged over 660 calls that year from children who talked about the Middle East crisis and terrorism.
The kids reportedly call the hotline to share their fears about ISIS potentially launching an attack in the U.K. A ChildLine spokesperson said that these sentiments among children must not be brushed aside and that the hotline remains open 24/7.
