Extremist groups rely upon women to gain strategic advantage, recruiting them as facilitators and martyrs while also benefiting from their subjugation.
The number of women implicated in terrorism-related crimes is growing. In 2017, the Global Extremism Monitor registered 100 distinct suicide attacks conducted by 181 female militants, 11 percent of all incidents that year. In 2016, women constituted 26 percent of those arrested on terrorism charges in Europe, up from 18 percent the year before. While counterterrorism efforts have reduced the physical stronghold previously held by the Islamic State group, women fuel extremists’ continued influence by advancing their ideology online and by indoctrinating their families. New technology allows for more sophisticated outreach, directly targeting messages to radicalize and recruit women. It also provides a platform on which female extremists thrive by expanding their recruitment reach and taking on greater operational roles in the virtual sphere. The failure of counterterrorist efforts to understand the ways in which women radicalize, support, and perpetrate violence cedes the benefit of their involvement to extremist groups.
Omitting women from terrorism prevention efforts also forfeits their potential contributions as mitigators of extremism. Women are well positioned to detect early signs of radicalization, because fundamentalists often target women’s rights first. As security officials, women provide insights and information that can be mission critical in keeping the peace. And because of their distinctive access and influence, women are crucial antiterrorism messengers in schools, religious institutions, social environments, and local government. Overlooking the contributions women can make to prevent extremism renders the United States less secure.
Many extremist groups promote an ideology that classifies women as second-class citizens and offers strategic and financial benefits through women’s subjugation. Boko Haram, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Shabab, and other groups use sexual violence to terrorize populations into compliance, displace civilians from strategic areas, enforce unit cohesion among fighters, and even generate revenue through trafficking. Suppressing women’s rights also allows extremists to control reproduction and harness female labor.
Original publication by https://www.cfr.org/