15 year-old French girl flees ISIS mental captivity

Unlike most 15 year-old French girls who spend their time on social media chatting with friends about schoolmates, listening to music and watching movies online, it was different for Joanna who sought something different.

Joanna was using the Internet to track down a fake passport in order to find her way to Syria and in the process, she got in contact with one of the women directly involved in the Paris attacks.

Like many in France, Joanna (not her real name) was brought up as a Catholic. But in her teens, she decided to convert to Islam. Joanna says her religious fervour took her in a different direction.

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Joanna’s growing isolation from her family, who, as non-Muslims, found it hard to understand her decision to convert, meant the recruiters were able to manipulate her.

At first, her mother wrote off Joanna’s obsession with Islam as some sort of teenage rebellion. She says she finally realised that something was seriously wrong when Joanna called her an “infidel.”

That’s when she called a national helpline.
But thanks to her mother’s intervention, Joanna is now one of the youngest participants in France’s program to bring Muslims back from the brink of ISIS radicalization.

Joanna was lucky enough to get out before she found herself inside ISIS territory and her message to those, like her, at risk of being targeted by ISIS is to stay alert.

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