Three Australian Women Charged After Return From Syria and ISIS Camp

Two women from Victoria were arrested at Melbourne International Airport after returning from Syria, and prosecutors charged them with crimes against humanity over alleged enslavement in ISIS-held territory. A third woman was arrested in Sydney on terrorism-related charges, turning the return of a family group from Al Roj camp into one of Australia’s most consequential cases involving alleged ISIS affiliates.

The Victoria Joint Counter Terrorism Team charged the 53-year-old and the 31-year-old after their arrival on 7 May 2026. The older woman faces counts of enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and slave trading. The younger woman faces charges of enslavement and use of a slave. Each crimes-against-humanity offence carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Both women were expected to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on 8 May 2026.

Police allege the 53-year-old travelled to Syria in 2014 with her husband and children and was complicit in the purchase of a female slave for US$10,000, then knowingly kept the woman in the home. The 31-year-old is alleged to have travelled to Syria in 2014 with her family and knowingly kept a female slave in the home. Those allegations place the case at the center of wider efforts to confront sexual slavery and coercion linked to ISIS’s rule in Syria and Iraq.

A third woman, aged 32, was arrested after arriving in Sydney and charged with entering or remaining in a declared area and being a member of a terrorist organisation. Police allege she travelled to Syria in 2015 to join her husband, who had already left Australia and joined ISIS. Those offences carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The group had been detained by Kurdish forces in March 2019 and held for years in Al Roj Internally Displaced Persons camp in north-eastern Syria after the collapse of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate. In all, four women and nine children, all Australian citizens, returned to Australia on flights from Doha. Authorities said the children would enter programs aimed at countering violent extremism.

The Australian Federal Police said planning for the possible return of people from the Middle East began in 2015 and was later formalised under Operation Kurrajong. Officials have also said Australian agencies have been investigating citizens who travelled to declared conflict areas since 2015. A previous attempt to bring 34 women and children back from the same camp in February 2026 was turned back by Syrian authorities.

The prosecutions carry significance well beyond the airport arrests. They place Australia among the countries testing how to gather evidence, assign criminal responsibility and pursue accountability years after atrocities committed overseas, when the battlefield is gone but the allegations remain. For prosecutors, the case turns on whether survivor testimony, field investigations and intelligence can sustain charges tied to enslavement, terrorist membership and conduct alleged to have taken place in 2014 and 2015.