Ms Begum also wants to challenge the removal of her British citizenship on the grounds that it made her "de facto stateless"

There is "overwhelming evidence" Shamima Begum was a victim of trafficking when she left the UK, a court has heard.

Ms Begum was 15 when she left east London with two other schoolgirls to join Islamic State in Syria in February 2015.

In 2019 she was found nine months pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp, and shortly after her British citizenship was revoked by then home secretary Sajid Javid over national security concerns.

In February this year, the Supreme Court ruled she could not return to the UK to pursue an appeal against the removal of her citizenship

Now 21, Ms Begum is challenging the Home Office's decision and has asked a specialist tribunal to consider whether she was a victim of trafficking when she travelled to Syria.

Her lawyers told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) at a hearing on Friday that the government had a legal duty to investigate whether she was a trafficking victim when her citizenship was removed.

Ms Begum's legal team said the Home Office failed to consider whether she was a "child trafficked to, and remaining in, Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced marriage", despite the counter-terrorism unit having "suspicions of coercion and control" at the time she left the UK.