women-in-extremism

 by Shailene Pimentel

Women in the Afghan Peace Process

Fawzia Koofi, a women’s rights activist and politician is eating lunch with members of the Taliban delegate at Doha peace conference. July 7, 2019. Image: Rise to Peace

Under Taliban rule (1996-2001), Afghan women were banned from attending schools and working as well. In addition to violating their civil and political rights, the Taliban has threatened women lives. Since the fall of the Taliban, women have feared that negotiating for a peace agreement with the Taliban meant giving up some of their rights in exchange for the chance to end the war.

In 2015, the Afghan government created a National Action Plan (NAP) that was developed to address the challenges women have faced in the areas of participation, protection, prevention, relief, and recovery.

As a result of the NAP, women have the chance to attend school and to participate in political and economic opportunities.

Women want to participate in the Afghanistan peace process.

Of 23 rounds of talks between 2005 and 2014, there were only two occasions where women were present at the table. Moreover, there has only been one minister in the Afghan government that was a woman. Women have gained the right to participate politically, but what good does that do when women’s roles aren’t addressed in the government/local sector?

There are a few ways outside of the government in which Afghan women make contributions to address violence and equality throughout the country.

Female electoral candidates work to provide a voice for uneducated women.

For example, female members of peace councils try to negotiate with insurgent leaders. By doing so, they are working to reassure their support for reintegration of Taliban fighters into the community.

Women also encourage local fighters to participate in talks within the community to address current extremist narratives. 

Involving women in the peace process could only benefit the affair. In the past, the female-led peace councils have gathered with the wives of fighters to facilitate the release of hostages, which has been successful.

Building relationships and trust with allies could lead to a negotiation between the two parties. Given the violent history towards women, it is hard to contribute to the peace movement since it’s predominantly male-led. 

Wazhma Frogh is the Cofounder of the Research Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and is one of the brave women in Afghanistan. She briefed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on various recommendations to improve the involvement of women in the peace process.

Her advocacy included topics such as delegating a specific institution to oversee the NAP to ensure proper inclusion and implementation, allowing more women to participate in peace talks, and encouraging women to participate in the policing and security sector.

Integrating women into the political realm in a country where women have long suffered inequality could take some time to incorporate fully.

Therefore, the Afghan government should consider making small changes that further women’s participation. For instance, the government should consider including a particular amount of females in peace talks. One or two women would be better than none at all.

The government should also include women in law enforcement and security. Since local female political leaders move to represent the underrepresented women, this will provide women with more opportunities for leadership and capacity building in an area that most women fear.

This could give women the confidence they need to understand political matters in a way where they can then network in domains where men cannot. 

Afghani women today are not only moving to become more equal but wanting to partake in a way that allows them to help the entire country to progress from war. Including women in the peace process empowers them to build trust and rapport with both local communities and the government. 

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Image Credit: Luba Lukova
 by Amy Hetherington

“People, not Pawns”: Female Extremists Beneath the Sensation

Image Credit: Luba Lukova

Image Credit: Luba Lukova

 

 

The majority of violent extremists in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and around the world are males. However, women also participate in the violence perpetrated by extremist groups and promote radical ideologies. While there may be statistically fewer women in these roles, their participation is still serious and should not be overlooked.

This article aims to highlight the important research findings published by Laura Sjoberg, a respected feminist scholar, in a USAID brief from 2015. This brief was published at a time when many women and girls, a significant number from Western countries, were traveling to territory controlled by ISIS in order to pledge themselves as foreign fighters.

Sjoberg’s (2015) work illustrates the specificities of how women are radicalized, why they are radicalized, and their gender-specific roles within these groups. She advocates for further work being done on counter-violent extremism (CVE) programs that are supported by the knowledge of why/how women participate in extremism. This article will be the first publication of our women and extremism project – intended to further knowledge in this field to create meaningful policies.

Stories in the news about female extremists in recent years have sensationalized the role women have within these networks.

Shamima Begum and Lisa Smith are examples of women whose identities as female extremists have garnered them much public attention. These women are labeled as ‘jihadi brides’ in order to explain the phenomenon of women in the role of what is stereotypically portrayed as a male one.

This label highlights gender stereotypes assigned to women by citing things like emotions or sexuality to explain the participation of these women in extremist activity – accentuating their supposedly helpless nature. Locating women to a position of victimhood marginalizes them and warrants the necessity of their being saved – likely by men. This de-politicizes their actions and strips agency from the motives and agendas with which they seek to further by way of their participation.

In contrast to the assumption that women are ‘lured’ into extremism against their better judgment, research demonstrates that male and female extremists “have more in common than not,” when it comes to the drivers for their radicalization and participation in extremist groups (Sjoberg 2015, p. 2).

In interviews, women also cite things like ideology or desire for political change as reasons for their mobilization, rather than the desire for ‘romantic adventure’ (Sjoberg 2015, p. 2). The positioning of female extremists as victims does not account for their personal agendas for joining these groups that are often rooted in political or religious motivations. Interestingly, when women become radicalized they are titled female extremists, unlike their male counterparts who are just ‘extremists,’ rather than underscoring their gender.

Female extremists can contribute to violent agendas in a variety of ways. Their roles can range from support roles in the organization as well as being on the ‘front lines’. Further, women bring an added value in their role within extremist agendas because they are less likely to bring attention from authorities or be searched in public spaces (Sjoberg 2015, p. 3). This unique and distinct utility that women bring emphasizes the seriousness that should be paid to women who are being radicalized – particularly as their involvement is being made light of.

Sjoberg (2015) asserts that the oversight of women’s participation in extremism results in most counter violent extremism programs being targeted at males (p. 2). A first step is to recognize that women of varying identities and cultures participate and provide real assistance to violent groups.

This positioning of women extremists as victims is detrimental to effective policy on countering radicalization because it ignores their reasons for joining and credits their radicalization to gender stereotypes.

By drawing attention to women extremists, this team of researchers aims to expand discourse and scholarship to research female extremists with the gravity they should be regarded. This does not mean to disregard that some women are in fact victims and have been unknowingly enticed into extremist groups.

However, by sensationalizing women extremists in the news and using terminology like ‘jihadi bride’ all women are often essentialized into a category that is devoid of potential political agenda and well-calculated motives. Sjoberg’s (2015) work specifically addresses extremism in the MENA, but our work intends to address women across the globe supporting groups like the IRA in Ireland, FARC in Columbia, or others.

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 by Josephine Neulen

Women and their Role in Violent Extremism

Recruitment of women by violent extremist organizations has increased in recent years due to their value as strategic, political, and social tools in service of the organization’s mission. They attract less suspicion, making them valuable in bombing missions, but they also are of deep symbolic importance in the organization’s daily progress.

Recruitment of women by al-Qaeda disturbs Iraq government

In 2016, Indonesian police arrested two women, Dian Yulia Novi and Ika Puspitasari, after they had planned a suicide bomb attack.[1] These occurrences are often puzzling to officials since it is usually assumed women are only indirectly involved in extremist organizations through supporting or hiding their husbands or other men. This is not necessarily true.

While the exact number of women in terror organizations is unclear, the recently collapsed IS caliphate sheds light on the tally, like the approximately 800 women who had joined Daesh that are now being detained in northern Syria[2]. Roughly 10% of radical Islamic groups’ members are women, a portion that is surprisingly large and inspires questions about why women join these organizations. [3]

Women join terror organizations for the same reasons men do, despite the disparity in numbers from each gender who join. While women are often portrayed as more “virtuous” and “passive” than violent, they are drawn to the community, the ideology, and the identity just like men are. The promise of liberation, empowerment, and a cause to live for draws men and women alike to extremist groups[4]. In recent years, both women and men have come from all over the world to join the cause they believe in.

The presence of women in violent extremist organizations is important due to the symbolic significance they carry. Women joining ISIS, for example, are vital to the ideological effort through social-media recruitment. They represent the future of the cause and perpetuation of the ideology as wives and mothers.[5] While research suggests that they are not involved in daily violence as much as men are, they are far from passive.

While there are some valuable accounts, more research is needed to shed light on the exact roles women play in these communities, and what potential impact they have. Terror organizations have long understood women’s significance to their cause. They are potentially even more dangerous due to the lack of suspicion they arouse, and the support they are able to inspire in young recruits.[6]

Sources:

[1] Ayuningtyas, Kusumasari. Indonesian Seminar Outlines Women’s Roles in Terror Prevention. (January 26, 2018). 
[2] 800 female Daesh terrorists detained in northern Syria. (February 10, 2018). 
[3] Moss, C. (2017, July 2). Why Do Women Become Terrorists? The Daily Beast. 
[4] Attia, B. M.-E. and S. (2017, May 9). Female terrorists and their role in jihadi groups. 
[5] Baker, Aryn (September 6, 2014). How ISIS Is Recruiting Women From Around the World. 
[6] Says, A. E. (2016, October 28). Increasing number of women recruited by terrorists.

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