The Indoctrination and the Treatment of Children from ISIS

Abstract

Islamic State of Iraq and Sham(ISIS) use the most elaborate technological ways of our time to consolidate a new propaganda. We will see how kinship with Nazism makes it possible to observe similarities in the mechanisms used to spread propaganda. Some aspects also cut across the techniques used on child soldiers.

Our study shows that the whole process of juvenile indoctrination results from the interaction of tree cumulative approaches:

- emotional (ISIS has an anxiety-provoking approach, based on the exacerbation of the fear of "the others"),

- relational (the group becomes a substituted family where the bonds are fusional and protective, the child distances himself from his kinship system to regenerate through a new imaginary filiation, sacred and fantasized)

- and cognitive-ideological (the discourse presents the application of the divine law to obtain a better self and a better world.

Based on a follow-up of 450 French jihadists from 12 to 25 years old as part of a ministerial mission, first lines for treatment will be shared, especially by reflecting on the consideration of the trauma and on the role of the extended family.The conceptual framework for the dis-indoctrination program of children must integrate a two-fold emotional-ideological dimension.

Key words : children, ISIS, indoctrination, dis-indoctrination, jihadisme, treatment.