The Supreme Court in the Netherlands ruled Friday that the state is not legally obliged to repatriate Dutch women and children of Islamic State (IS) fighters held in Syria. 

The legal team representing the 23 women who left their home country to join the terrorist group had asked the court to require the state repatriate the women and their 56 children. In November 2019, an appeals court judge in The Hague overturned a previous ruling that said the Netherlands must make “all possible efforts” to repatriate the children, most of whom are under 6 years old.  

In its ruling Friday, the country’s Supreme Court maintained that because the women and children are outside Dutch territory, they can’t invoke human rights treaties of which the Netherlands is a signatory. The court also noted that the women traveled voluntarily to the conflict zone and that they could present a national security risk should they return.

When IS lost its last shred of territory in the Syrian town of Baghouz in March 2019, thousands of IS fighters and their families were transferred to Kurdish-run detention centers and camps. Today, an estimated 68,000 suspected fighters and their relatives remain in the custody of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.