 My name is Sarang Hamasahid. I'm Director of Middle East programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The U.S. led global coalition to defeat ISIS, declared military defeat of ISIS in Syria in March of 2019. Today, ISIS as a military threat is significantly degraded, but it's not finished. Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria became a visible symbol of the challenges that remain behind. There, in Al-Hol, at its peak, there were 73,000 people from some 60 nationalities. The current population of Al-Hol in August of 2023 is estimated to be around 53,000. About 25,000 of those are Iraqis, 18,000 Syrians, and the rest are from some 50 to 60 nationalities that remain in the camp. Most of them are women and children. About 50% of the population are children under the age of 11. Al-Hol represents a complex mix of humanitarian and security challenges. On the one side, many of these women and children did not choose the life that they have ended up stuck with, especially the children. They did not choose their parents. They did not choose being at Al-Hol. But on the other hand, government officials, community members perceive those who are in Al-Hol to be ISIS. So there is an institutional and social stigma on those residents of Al-Hol. In Iraq, USIP is working with government and community leaders to address the enduring challenges of the conflict with ISIS. And that includes helping people in Al-Hol or displaced in Iraq, but have a perception of affiliation with ISIS to be able to have a decent path at integrating into society and having a decent life. For this, USIP is organizing roundtables, trainings, workshops and problem-solving dialogues that bring government and civil society leaders together to address the issues of ISIS and return on reintegration. The process is informed by data directly collected from USIP's conflict and stabilization monitoring framework in Ninoa and also stigma research in the province of Anbar. Through this data, we are painting a picture of what does stigma mean in practical terms for those people, be it bullying of children at school, be it isolation and harassment of women, young men not being able to work, or the general process of formal or social pressure for those people to disavow family members as being ISIS in many conditions that they are not just under pressure so that they can reintegrate, they are doing those disavows. We have been successful in establishing community and government mechanisms, like for example in Anbar, to transform community opposition to support to actual collaboration between the tribal leaders and government leaders of Iraq and enable the return of people with perceived affiliation with ISIS but actually cleared by the government of Iraq to be able to go back to Anbar. So far, the government of Iraq has been able to return 5,569 Iraqis to Iraq. Half of those have already returned to their areas after undergoing a rehabilitation process in the Al-Jadah Rehabilitation Center in Nineveh. The international community, Iraqi and Syrian partners, have made a lot of progress in the military defeat of ISIS and stabilizing areas that have been cleared from ISIS but there is a need to continue and deepen work on rehabilitation and reintegration and do that in practical terms. There is a need for know-how, there is a need for problem solving and there is a need for psychosocial support, especially for children at school for women as they reintegrate, especially for youth as they try to find economic opportunity. There is a need to deepen that work to the individual or the case level and help those people to go home and overcome the institutional and community barriers. Otherwise, we will be risking the vulnerability and the isolation of tens of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians to become available for malign actors, be it ISIS as it is trying to research or other extremist organizations and malign actors.