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“A lot have been unable to go to work. At least one father has descended into alcoholism.”

As Amarasingam explained, “it’s not simply that their child has made a mistake,” but they now have grandkids growing up in a war zone from which they likely may never emerge alive.

Plus, ISIL has had no qualms about using young children as executioners.

“Lions are obligated to teach their cubs hunting skills,” one ISIL fighter told Amarasingam in January when he asked why they were having their children “introduced to war and killing so young.”

The Canadian women hail almost exclusively from urban areas and are aged between 19 and 26. They are either converts from Christian or secular families, or grew up in families of lapsed Muslims.

While Amarasingam said it has been the case in Europe that radicalized Muslim families have groomed a child for jihad, Canada’s ISIL recruits all turned their back on families they saw as decadent sellouts.

Most notable was the case of RCAF corporal Wayne Driver, who was helping to train Canada’s anti-ISIL bombing mission when he received word that his son Aaron had been arrested while attempting to make his way to ISIL-controlled territory.

“I still can’t understand how your kid could do something like that, especially when you did your best like any parent to raise him,” Driver told Postmedia in October.

‘You’re not simply raising a child, you’re raising the next generation of mujahedeen to protect the caliphate’

Amarasingam said the warning signs are usually subtle. New friends, new behaviours, more time spent online. And then suddenly, a child is either in RCMP custody or messaging home from the Middle East.