The home secretary will "robustly defend" the decision to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship, as European judges scrutinise the move, according to a government source.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has called for an investigation, but a government source said the the decision had already been upheld by UK courts.
Ms Begum was 15 when she travelled from east London to the Middle East, to a territory held by the Islamic State group, where she married a fighter.
Now 26, she was subsequently stripped of her British citizenship on the grounds that she posed a threat to national security but her lawyers say this failed to consider whether she was a victim of grooming and trafficking.
The ECHR has asked the Home Office whether ministers at the time considered whether Ms Begum had been a victim, and whether the UK had obligations to her.
But a government source said: "The home secretary will robustly defend the decision to revoke Shamima Begum's citizenship, which has been tested and upheld time and again in our domestic courts.
"The home secretary will always put this country's national security first."
In a document published by the ECHR earlier this month, it states that Ms Begum is challenging the decision to revoke her British citizenship under Article 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights - prohibition of slavery and forced labour.
The case was lodged in December 2024 after the UK's Supreme Court denied her the chance to challenge the decision.
The four questions posed by judges in Strasbourg to the Home Office, include: "Did the Secretary of State have a positive obligation, by virtue of Article 4 of the Convention, to consider whether the applicant had been a victim of trafficking, and whether any duties or obligations to her flowed from that fact, before deciding to deprive her of her citizenship?"
Ms Begum was born in the UK to parents of Bangladeshi heritage and was 15 when she left Bethnal Green, east London, with two schoolfriends in 2015 to support the Islamic State group.
She had married an Islamic State fighter soon after arriving and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.
She was later found in a refugee camp in Syria and a tribunal ruled in February 2020 that because she was "a citizen of Bangladesh by descent" removing her British nationality would not make her stateless.
A series of appeals were made, ending in the decision that she would not be allowed to challenge it at the Supreme Court.
Lawyer Gareth Pierce, who is representing Ms Begum, said it was "impossible to dispute" that a 15-year-old was "lured, encouraged and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation to leave home and travel to Isil-controlled territory".
She added: "It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known for weeks beforehand to be at high risk when a close friend had disappeared to Syria in an identical way and via an identical route.
"It has already been long conceded that the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, who took the precipitous decision in 2019 very publicly to deprive Ms Begum of citizenship, had failed entirely to consider the issues of grooming and trafficking of a school child in London and of the state's consequent duties."
The Conservatives said Ms Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK "under any circumstances".
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Ms Begum "chose to go and support the violent Islamist extremists".
He added: "She has no place in the UK and our own Supreme Court found that depriving her of citizenship was lawful.
"It is deeply concerning the European Court of Human Rights is now looking at using the ECHR to make the UK take her back."

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