Radicalization and Extremism

The Five Questions Series is a forum for scholars, government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign policy practitioners to provide timely analysis of new developments related to the advancement of women and girls worldwide. This interview is with Salman Sufi, Senior Member of the Special Monitoring Unit, Law and Order, of Punjab, to discuss the historic Protection of Women Against Violence Bill, passed in Punjab in February 2016. Can you describe the prevalence rate of violence against women in Punjab, and how the Protection of Women Against Violence Bill came about in response to it? The level of violence reported is around eight women raped every day, eleven assaulted, and thirty-two women abducted. That represents at least sixty women subjected to violence every day in Punjab alone. And those are just the reported cases—there are clearly a lot more that go unreported, and this was unacceptable for the Chief Minister. Pakistani legal code already covers a lot of offenses, but there was no mechanism that specifically catered to violence against women. There was a loophole that people took advantage of—when they went to police stations, they were told that acts of violence against women were domestic issues that should be taken care of in the home. With the bill, we wanted to make sure that we offered some civil remedies to violence, and remedies to address assault even before it happens—if there is solid evidence that violence may occur, a woman needs protection and support from the government. From 2004 until 2012, the bill was in various forms of drafting, and then, in 2012, the Chief Minister announced on International Women’s Day that it was finally going to become a full act. In 2014, I took over at the law and order wing of Special Monitoring Unit, and, on orders of Chief Minister of Punjab, I took on this initiative. Most previous drafts focused only on domestic violence, but I wanted to make sure that all types of violence came into play—sexual violence, cyber violence, economic abuse, psychological abuse. In drafting the act, I wanted to make it comprehensive. What measures will be taken to ensure that the new protections legally granted to women are implemented, given that violence against women is underreported and the conviction rate of perpetrators is strikingly low in Punjab? Conviction rates are indeed extremely low—around one percent of cases result in conviction. This is why I introduced an implementation mechanism with the act. If we relied solely on police and other existing bodies like typical legislation does, the act wouldn’t work, because we’d be using the same old tools. There are three major implementation mechanisms that are introduced in the act. One, there will be civil remedies from family courts rather than only the criminal courts. This means protection orders that include, for example, if someone is harassing a woman, even digitally, sending texts, and trying to stalk her, or if a rapist is trying to intimidate someone into not going to the police. The court can pass a protection order so that an anklet GPS device will be issued to the perpetrator. The threat of a GPS anklet is also a big psychological deterrent in a society like Pakistan, and it will make people consider the legal ramifications before they commit violence. Second, there is a residence order. If a woman is kicked out of a home for whatever reason but has a stake in the house, the order will guarantee her claim to the house, and, if she is not allowed back in or the situation is unsafe, the government will ensure that she gets to stay in the house she was evicted from, or provide her a shelter to stay in. Finally, there is a monetary order—a remedy to anyone taking wages away from a working woman or denying her dues. In the last ten years, as women in Pakistan have come more into mainstream public life and joined politics and the workforce, many men—especially husbands—think it is their right to receive women’s earnings. We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen. If a woman goes to a court, the court will order that her money belongs to her only. If she has jewelry that another person is holding, the court will rule that it needs to be returned. If she has spent any money fighting a case, the court will grant her reimbursement. I wanted to include this monetary order because many women were not coming forward because they didn’t have the money or the mechanism to. In order to make women an effective force in the economic development of Pakistan, we have to make sure that first they are protected. Earnings should never be taken from women under the pretext that it doesn’t rightly belong to them. It is worth noting that in this bill, there is not a single clause that mentions the word male or husband, or brother or father. It is only aggressor and aggrieved. The aggressor can be female, and subject to the same penalties. These orders will be implemented by women’s protection officers on the ground, who are the people who are called when help or mediation is needed--they are female officers who will go to a house or workplace. The bill will also be implemented through the Violence Against Women Center, a one-stop-shop that houses the relevant departments under one roof: police, prosecution, medical, legal, forensics, psychologists, and shelters. When we were drafting this act, we were questioning why the conviction rate for violence against women in Punjab is only one-to-two percent. One issue was disconnect between departments. So we came up with a mechanism that effectively brings the services of all departments under one roof and connects them with a specialized software. With this software, police, prosecutors, and medical and legal experts are all connected. This is a brand new system the Special Monitoring Unit got developed—it is our brainchild. Now we have it in the Violence Against Women Center, and the next aim is to bring it to all police stations. Imagine the impact when all these departments can connect and talk to each other. The criminal prosecution will skyrocket. The implementation mechanisms are the crown jewels of this bill. This is why the bill has gotten a lot of pushback—because people know that it will actually bite. This is not something that just gets passed, gets some applause, and then everything goes back to how it was. A broad coalition of civil society groups, leaders of the opposition parties, and some Islamic scholars support the act. But a number of clerics have vocally opposed it. What is the role of religious bodies in determining the future of the bill? The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is a constitutional advising body, but only if the government seeks their advice. Their recommendations are not mandatory. But, over the course of time, a mentality developed that when the council says something is un-Islamic, people believed that it is to be implemented mandatorily even when there are divergent views within the council itself, as Islamic interpretations vary among different schools of thought. In order to get around this, I had to be careful and technical—once we had the bill drafted, we made sure that there was nothing un-Islamic in it. There is nothing un-Islamic about protecting women’s safety. Two of the prominent members of the CII said publicly that it was wrong for the council to call the act un-Islamic, and that they absolutely endorsed the bill. So there was a bit of fighting within the ranks. Once the bill was passed, we called the fifteen ulema clerics of the council to the table to hear their observations, and, after two weeks of meeting, all they had were four observations. They could not prove that it was un-Islamic. We accommodated their observations into the rules—not into the act, because it didn’t need an amendment. For example, they said that if a husband and wife are having an issue, families should be given the chance to be involved in mediation. So we said that was fine, as long as both parties want family members to be there. But only given that the parents are not the ones who are forcing the issue in the first place, because, in a combined family system, sometimes it’s the parents who are provoking and urging someone to commit violence. If that’s the case, we are not going to involve them in the mediation. The trained district women’s protection officer will make these decisions. Now these ulemas are helping us implement the act and educating the public via sermons in mosques about how Islam strictly forbids violence. There is a significant amount of discussion about the act serving as a deterrent to violence. In what ways is the regional government also engaging men and boys to build support for women’s rights and safety? We have coupled the act with a focus on reaching the next generation. We successfully added a chapter on gender-based violence to the school curriculum for grades nine through twelve last year. The Chief Minister approved it and the chapters are in development right now, to be added to the social studies books and curricula of grades nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, focused on the rights of girls, how to approach authorities, and best practices in resolving conflicts rather than resorting to violence. For our next generation, in ten years from now, our hope is that they won’t turn toward violence to begin with. This curriculum change is a major accomplishment in Punjab, and we are the only province in Pakistan who have managed to get that done. The recent documentary A Girl in the River, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who recently visited your Special Monitoring Unit Law & Order Chief Minister’s Office, has brought international attention to the issue of violence against women in Pakistan. How have you seen the film contribute to public dialogue about violence against women, in Pakistan and around the world? Fortunately, when her film came out, the Violence Against Women Center was already planned and we had started construction on the physical space in October, so things were already moving with the right gears. After her film came out, it was a blessing that brought everything together, as the act passed in the same month that she won the Oscar. Everything fell into place, and started a productive conversation between the right and the left wing, as well as in the public. Right now, there is so much going on in Pakistan on other issues of violence, with the National Action Plan on terrorism and the ongoing fight against militancy. But no matter how much foreign aid money is sent, if social and political processes on the ground are not fixed then all money is going to go where it already goes, and we won’t see change in security or stability on the ground. If domestic processes are right and the U.S. supports the Pakistani government on positive legislation like the Protection of Women Against Violence Bill, we can help people tackle the issues that affect them and affect stability on a daily basis. Women’s protection in their own homes and communities is connected to state stability. And 49 percent of the population is women, and they are all standing behind this legislation. Imagine when this starts to change their lives. The country will be able to accomplish much more. Pakistan is the first Islamic country to have such powerful legislation—and hopefully implementation—preventing and responding to violence against women. This can be used as an example around the world, and perhaps other countries will follow suit, particularly if the U.S. and other international actors stand behind us.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering April 7 to April 15, was compiled with support from Anne Connell and Alexandra Eterno. Two-year anniversary of abducted Nigerian schoolgirls                      This week marks the two-year anniversary of the abduction of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in the Nigerian town of Chibok, raising serious concerns about the efficacy of government and international efforts to rescue these girls. A video—thought to be filmed late last year—showing a number of the 219 girls still missing was released yesterday to the media and the girls’ families, many of whom were active in the #bringbackourgirls campaign that galvanized international support in 2014. The vast majority of the Chibok girls remain in captivity and subject to human rights abuses, including sexual assault and forced marriage. Some also have been trained and deployed by the Islamic insurgents as suicide bombers across northeast Nigeria and in neighboring countries: a recent UNICEF report reveals that Boko Haram now uses girls to carry out more than three quarters of its suicide attacks. Those girls who have managed to escape captivity reportedly face social exclusion and stigma upon return to their communities. Since Boko Haram began its vicious campaign to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state in the northeast, over 2.3 million people have fled their homes and more than 1 million children have been forced out of school. Keiko Fujimori wins elections in Peru                                                                         Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of controversial former President Alberto Fujimori, won the first round of Peru’s presidential elections on Sunday and is set to face a run-off in June with former World Bank economist Pedro Kuczynski; if she wins, she will become Peru’s first female head of state. The second-round election looks to be a tight race, but may be affected by scrutiny of Kuczynski for his role in a business deal revealed by the Panama Papers. Fujimori has come under criticism because of her failure to distance herself from the human rights abuses and corruption of her father’s right-wing populist rule of Peru in the 1990s, during which time he led a brutal government crackdown on the Shining Path guerrilla group. A number of women’s rights organizations are protesting the younger Fujimori’s bid for the presidency due to her comments that have downplayed or denied this legacy of abuse, including the sterilization of thousands of women in a highly-criticized state-run population control program. Fujimori, if elected, promises to extend free-market policies, promote economic growth in Peru’s isolated rural areas, and combat terrorism. Unequal pay for women                                                                                                         Equal Pay Day, held on April 12 each year, highlights the persistent gender wage gap in the U.S.—a gap that exists in both developing and developed economies around the world. The global pay gap is driven by a number of factors: nearly 90 percent of 173 studied economies in 2015 have at least one law on the books that restricts women’s economic opportunities. Legal barriers to women’s work are compounded by the gender gap in secondary education, traditional gender norms that inhibit women’s ability to work, unequal access to health services, and violence against women—particularly among the world’s poor, rural, and marginalized women. The concentration of women in low-wage work is another critical driver of the gender gap in economies around the world: women vastly outnumber men in positions that are informal, vulnerable, low-paid, or market-undervalued—work that is also often unprotected by labor legislation. The burden of domestic work and small-scale farming, in particular, is borne by women, who comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries and are often unpaid for their labor. According to a recent analysis from the McKinsey Global Institute, remedying these gaps and advancing women’s economic participation stands to add $12 trillion to global growth.  

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering March 31 to April 7, was compiled with support from Anne Connell, Becky Allen, and Alexandra Eterno. First female chief minister of Kashmir                                                  The first female chief minister of Kashmir took office on Monday, becoming the head of the Indian-administered region’s government. Mufti fills a vacancy that was left after the death of her father, the region’s previous chief minister, in January. She will take the reins of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (PDP), ending a deadlock over the formation of a new state government and potentially moving toward a coalition with India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mufti’s history of working toward peace and stability in Kashmir, including visiting militants’ homes and families, has earned her a significant base of political support in a region where many communities—and particularly women—have been affected by decades of violence, including sexual abuses and extrajudicial punishments carried out by Indian security forces and militant groups. Arab States aim to prevent sexual violence                                                                       The United Nations and the League of Arab States signed an agreement to deter sexual violence in conflicts across the region, with a particular focus on armed conflict in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Many of the region’s states have seen widespread reports of sexual violence against populations in extremist-controlled territories, as well as among those displaced by conflict. Signed in Cairo on March 29, the new agreement aims to combat sexual violence through increased cooperation between governments and security sectors, improved training programs for military and law enforcement personnel, and education to reduce the stigma of sexual violence for survivors. Recent research supports the notion that rape and other abuses carried out by armed actors are not inevitable, despite frequent upticks in sexual violence during wartime, and targeted policy interventions have the potential to reduce rates of abuse. At the signing ceremony, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zainab Hawa Bangura expressed hope that “the focused engagement of the Arab League will catalyze greater national leadership, ownership, and responsibility” among member countries to implement policies that protect vulnerable populations. Gender gap at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit                                                        Last week, President Obama convened world leaders for the final Nuclear Security Summit of his presidency, with a focus on responding to threats posed by nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of small nuclear devices or dirty bombs that are vulnerable to theft—dangers that transcend national boundaries and require coordinated efforts from a range of stakeholders. Notable at the summit, however, was the gender gap among participants: among the heads of state and foreign ministers in attendance, eight of fifty-five were women—a proportion that reflects the global gender gap in women’s representation in high-level political office. This gender disparity was also reflected among the summit’s “sherpas,” or senior experts from each country who lead consultations and develop work plans in the run-up to every summit: only seven of forty-nine were women. Some argue that the low representation of women contravened international commitments to include women in peace and security processes and ignored the growing body of evidence linking women’s participation to stability, calling for highly-qualified women around the world to contribute to the global nuclear security architecture. Fifty-five world leaders, eight of whom are women, gather for a group photo at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque        

“Simply put, when women are at the negotiating table, success is more likely,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), opening last week’s rare full congressional panel hearing on Women Fighting for Peace: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts. As increasingly costly, disruptive, and deadly conflicts unfold around the world, the hearing highlighted that, when women participate in negotiations, the resulting agreement is 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. “Think about the lives saved and economies maintained by a 35 percent decrease in repeated conflicts,” reflected Chairman Royce. Smart investments in women’s contributions to preventing conflict and building peace can foster durable peace in countries across the globe, reducing overall U.S. spending abroad and limiting foreign military intervention. One example where women have an effect is in countering violent extremism (CVE). A sobering reminder of the urgency of addressing extremism underscored the hearing—earlier the same morning, three explosions shook Brussels in a series of terrorist attacks orchestrated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The dire need for new approaches to this evolving global threat demands that policymakers around the world involve women in CVE and de-radicalization efforts. Research finds that women, frequently the first targets of fundamentalism, are often the first to stand up against it. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), cited this evidence as an imperative for the broader inclusion of women in the formation of security policy. Greater inclusion of women at the negotiating table and in post-conflict governance is a catalyst for peace, as well. When women are included in delegations, parties are more likely to sit down together, and when women participate in formal peace talks, success is more likely. A new study of forty peace processes found a strong correlation between the involvement of women’s groups in political negotiations and successful negotiation and implementation outcomes. Monica McWilliams, a renowned negotiator and signatory to the Good Friday Agreement, offered testimony of how women in Northern Ireland’s peace talks ensured that parties addressed issues like social services, schools, employment, and other factors that were critical to durable peace. Jacqueline O’Neill, director of The Institute for Inclusive Security, presented research on how women help ensure that peace agreements, once reached, are supported by the disaffected communities. Given that one of the strongest predictive factors of conflict onset is previous conflict, the integration of women’s perspectives and contributions in negotiating and implementing peace agreements is vital not only to the recovery from conflicts, but to the prevention of future cycles of violence. Another area where targeted investments hold the potential to pay big dividends is in the recruitment and training of women in police, security, and peacekeeping forces. Hassan Abbas, security analyst and professor at the National Defense University, suggested that increasing the numbers of women in police forces “is directly linked to effective and good policing.” Research suggests that policewomen are more likely than their male counterparts to successfully de-escalate tensions; women in policed communities are more likely to report gender-based violence to female officers; and female officers may have access to populations and spaces that are closed off to men in conservative cultures. A growing body of evidence supports the notion that increasing the number of women in police forces could significantly reduce police violence and excessive use of force, as well as foster broader social and political stability. Monica McWilliams, Hassan Abbas, and Jacqueline O’Neill (L-R) testify at the congressional panel hearing on Women Fighting for Peace: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts. Allison Muehlenbeck/The Institute for Inclusive Security So what should the United States do to ensure that women’s participation in peace and security processes—including in CVE efforts, policing, and peace negotiations—remains squarely on the agenda of policymakers at home and abroad? First, the U.S. must lead by example. While the United States advocates for greater participation by women in peace and security efforts abroad, congressional representatives and witnesses at last week’s hearing suggested that the U.S. government could do better at setting the tone. They suggested that Congress could recruit more female experts to testify at their hearings and, while on official travel, meet with women in decision-making roles. Data collected on recent House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings on Iran, for example, found that at least thirty-eight of forty-five hearings had all-male panels, and, of the 140 named witnesses, a total of six were women. As the Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney observed, the proportion of women who testified on Iran policy in 2015 is comparable to the rate of women’s participation in Iran’s parliament, where 3 percent of MPs are women. Second, the U.S. government must make targeted investments. “Provid[ing] needed financial support in places where women’s inclusion is severely lacking… is about smart spending and big dividends,” O’Neill argued. State Department and USAID initiatives support the contributions of women to peace and security from Afghanistan to Colombia to South Sudan. Given the evidence of the impact women can make if provided the opportunity, even more could be done within overall U.S. spending on security. Third, accountability matters. “Too often, what gets agreed at the table is not delivered, which places the entire process in jeopardy,” McWilliams argued. She shared from her experience in Northern Ireland that “aspirational proposals in a peace agreement are not good enough… they need to be accompanied by benchmarks and timetables, alongside champions tasked to ensure these are enforced.” A similar call has been made in the United States, where there is an effort underway for Congress to pass the bipartisan “Women, Peace, and Security Act” (S. 224) in order to codify and provide oversight over the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. "The benefits of women’s participation - and the risks of their exclusion - in all aspects of governance and peacemaking are too great to ignore," Chairman Royce observed. Hearings like last week’s indicate that Congress knows it should care about whether women contribute to peace and security, and points to what they, along with others in the U.S. government as well as international actors, can do about it.  

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering March 18 to March 25, was compiled with the support of Anne Connell and Becky Allen. Women combat violent extremism                                                               As three explosions shook Brussels on Tuesday in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks orchestrated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, Women Without Borders, an organization that aims to bring women to the center of security dialogue and policymaking, had just completed a training session on countering violent extremism (CVE) outside Belgium’s capital city. The organization’s Mothers School initiative, which trains women to recognize and respond to early warning signs of radicalization in high-risk communities, has expanded efforts to include Belgium, where, by some reports, over five hundred young people have left to join extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. Dr. Edit Schlaffer, founder of Women Without Borders, argues that “[Mothers] have the access, but often not the tools and support to respond early enough and effectively.” The organization, supported by EU governments and foundations, runs its training model not only across Belgium but in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Jordan, among other countries, and has launched a three-year applied research project gathering new data on the role of mothers in de-radicalization and the prevention of extremism. The initiative is part of a growing recognition—including among U.S. policymakers—of the strategic imperative of involving women in CVE efforts around the world. Women’s empowerment and access to water                                                                          The link between access to water and employment, the theme of 2016’s World Water Day—marked on Wednesday of this week—has significant implications for the lives and livelihoods of women and girls. While water scarcity affects more than 40 percent of people worldwide, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF report, over 76 percent of households without access to drinking water task women and girls with collecting it. The unpaid labor of walking—in many places for miles—and collecting water has ripple effects not only on women’s lives, but on their families, communities, and national economies. In many countries in Africa, in particular, women spend up to six hours fetching water every day: in sub-Saharan Africa alone, 40 billion working hours are lost each year to the unpaid water collection that is overwhelmingly carried out by women and girls. Water collection often prevents women from maximizing productivity in other domestic tasks as well as from working in the formal economy. Water collection is one factor that inhibits girl children around the world from attending school regularly. And, in some contexts, water collection from distant sources can put women and girls at risk of sexual violence, as has been widely reported in Sudan. Experts argue that global efforts to tackle water challenges must better account for the disproportionate burden women and girls bear with respect to water collection and other domestic tasks. Commission on the Status of Women addresses SDGs                                                 The sixtieth convening of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) concluded two weeks of events led and attended by representatives of UN entities, member state governments, and non-governmental organizations from all regions of the world around the theme of “Women’s empowerment and its link to sustainable development,” with a focus on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Topics of high-level panels and side events during this year’s CSW included: the elimination of violence against women and girls, protection of women refugees, institutional reforms to bring women into national politics, gender mainstreaming in national ministries, the need for gender-disaggregated data across all sectors, and improved funding mechanisms for the 2030 Agenda. One of the most widely reported events of CSW60 was a high-level panel discussion with Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, which addressed the importance of gender parity in politics, civic participation, and the economy. Trudeau, who has appointed Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet, cited his government’s focus on gender equality in representation as the “open, fair, positive way of doing politics,” challenging other world governments to follow suit.

Traditionally, women have been viewed as victims of terrorists. However, the relationship between gender and terrorism is multifaceted. In some cases, women are themselves recruited and radicalized by violent extremists, supporting the terrorist activities of these extremists in a number of capacities. On the other hand, many women play vital roles in preventing radicalization and extremism. Moreover, in some cases, women (such as the Yazidi women who escaped abduction by the self-proclaimed Islamic State) have the ability to provide critical intelligence and insight about the inner workings of terrorist organizations, which can help governments around the world fight them. Women are often victims and survivors of some of conflicts’ worst atrocities committed by terrorists. Just as in more conventional forms of war and conflict, where rape and other forms of sexual violence continue to be tools of war, violent extremists use sexual violence to control women and exert power over communities. As I’ve discussed previously, extremist groups such as the Islamic State use violence against women, including sexual violence, as part of their political economy and a tactic of terror. In 2014, the Islamic State kidnapped an estimated three thousand Yazidi women, and the vast majority remain in captivity today. The group subjects those women who have not escaped to organized rape, sexual assault, forced marriages, forced conversions, and sexual slavery. Beyond these abuses and the group’s severe restrictions on women, the Islamic State also forcefully imposes other misguided constraints on women and girls including limiting their access to education and work, as reflected in its “manifesto on women.” Those who do not follow the rules or demonstrate disloyalty face brutal punishment, including being lashed, stoned, beheaded, or otherwise publicly executed. But beyond being victims and survivors, women have also been perpetrators of terrorism and active members of extremist groups. The al-Khansaa Brigade, (which I blogged about in a prior post), represents just one of the groups that women have joined to support extremists. Notably, the al-Khansaa Brigade represents an extremely small percentage of the women in the Islamic State (despite high-profile coverage of its activities in western media outlets, such as the New York Times and The Atlantic). It is comprised of both local Syrian women (such as those profiled in the New York Times article) and foreign women. The vast majority of women in the Islamic State overall are treated as chattel, whose primary function is to marry foreign fighters (with marriage matches based on a certain pecking order) and birth the next generation of jihadists. Within other extremist organizations, such as Boko Haram (which is technically now part of Wilayat Gharb Afriqiyah, an affiliate of the Islamic State), women have carried out terrorist attacks, commonly suicide bombings, though it is not always clear whether they do so willingly or are forced into it. While the Islamic State apparently does not allow women to fight on the front lines (with the possible exception of recruits from Europe), some women, in effect, support the group by marrying fighters and giving birth to the next generation. Alternatively, women can also be part of the solution to extremism. Empowering female leaders and women in conflict zones and other communities has the potential to be an effective strategy to combat violent extremism. Women’s groups around the world, such as Sisters Against Violent Extremism or Women Without Walls Initiative, are in positions to counter radicalization and extremism within their communities. Such local organizations have insights into which community members are at risk of being radicalized and have the ability to advance a counter narrative to extremism in their homes, in schools, and in their communities at large. Oftentimes, the women involved in these groups are mothers and have a finger on the pulse of which youth are susceptible to radicalization. Moreover, the empowerment of women is correlated with economic growth and stronger communities, which helps address many of the grievances—like poverty and unemployment—often cited as the root causes of conflict, violence, and extremism.

Far from demonstrating a new face of empowerment, so-called “jihadi girl power” wildly overstates the power of women and girls living under the control of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The image of women and girls joining jihad has emerged based on recent reports of a small group of Syrian women who have joined an all-female regiment of the Islamic State, as well as news coverage of dozens of European girls living under control of extremist groups in Syria—an aspect of the conflict that is starting to alarm European governments previously more focused on the flow of young men joining the ranks of the Islamic state. Notwithstanding recent reports of women pledging allegiance to the terror group in the West, the reality of women and girls living under the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria illustrates the stark realities of negotiating survival in territory under the group’s control. Elsewhere, I’ve discussed the plight of the Yazidi women abducted by Islamic State fighters. The experience of Syrian women in the al-Khansaa Brigade, the Islamic State’s all-female regiment, also demonstrates the terror network’s severe treatment of women, particularly those who do not conform to the extremist group’s strict ideology. In Raqqa, Syria—the Islamic State’s de facto capital—the al-Khansaa Brigade reportedly enforces the Islamic State’s harsh restrictions on women, including their dress and movement in public, and punishes violators. A report in the New York Times details how three “fairly typical young women of Raqqa” agreed to marry Islamic State fighters “to assuage the Organization and keep their families in favor” and ultimately became members of the al-Khansaa Brigade to survive. As members of the brigade, these women became collaborators and “enforcers” of the Islamic State’s harsh rules by turning in their former friends and neighbors for “violating” a strict code that penalizes women with arrests and beatings for actions such as wearing makeup, failing to fully cover in public, or going out without a male chaperone. Cynically, the Islamic State claims it is devoutly religious, even though its fighters use rape (including gang rape and rape of children), sex slavery, forced contraception, and forced marriage of women and girls as weapons of war. The three women who joined this so-called morality brigade eventually fled to Turkey, unable to bear the forced marriages to “martyrs” whose suicide deaths would leave them widowed and subject to repeated cycles of forced marriages, as the Islamic State demanded that widows remarry far sooner than is customary under Islamic law. Yet more broadly, the Islamic State has a certain appeal for some women, particularly young women. The Islamic State uses social media, including Twitter and Facebook, to recruit and radicalize women and girls, some of whom themselves play critical roles in propaganda, dissemination, and recruitment of other women and girls through online platforms. In its online messaging, the extremist group offers an opportunity for girls to serve a cause larger than themselves, a sense of belonging, and sometimes even the promise of romance or marriage to a fighter, particularly to attract young women from Europe to join the group in both Syria and Iraq. As Sasha Havlicek, founder of the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, noted in testimony before the U.S. Congress last year, “A jihadi girl-power subculture has emerged on social media networks, clearly rooted in western culture while simultaneously rejecting it[,]” for example, where the Islamic State has appropriated a well-know cosmetics slogan on social media, but twisted it with a photo of a completely veiled woman accompanied by a caption reading, “‘COVERed GIRL… because I’m worth it.’” In fact, Mia Bloom—a Georgia State University professor and author of Bombshell: Women and Terrorism—goes so far as to compare the recruitment efforts by the Islamic State fighters of women to online grooming by sexual predators. The experience of women living under the Islamic State demonstrates the questionable role of agency for women living under such coercive circumstances. These women—particularly those already living in Syria or Iraq—experience a Hobson’s choice: show loyalty to the terror group or suffer the consequences. To what extent is the decision to support the Islamic State a choice if the risk of not doing so is brutal punishment? If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to rob a bank, are you truly guilty of bank robbery? So much for “girl power.” The troublesome “choices” women are left with living under the Islamic State illustrate the complexity of gender and terrorism, where women can be victims, perpetrators, or agents in combating extremism (as I’ll discuss at greater length in a follow-on post on Women Around the World).

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering March 11 to March 17, was compiled by Anne Connell and Becky Allen. United Nations addresses peacekeeper abuse                                        On Friday, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2272, its first resolution addressing sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by some of the 100,000 United Nations (UN) peacekeepers deployed around the world. Allegations of rape and exploitation—including of children—by peacekeepers have undermined the legitimacy of operations in recent years, particularly in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Congo. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched an independent 10-week external panel investigation in 2015 in response to revelations about the UN’s failure to respond to accusations in the CAR, where twenty-two of the sixty-nine cases reported in 2015 took place. Over two dozen new allegations of abuse in missions around the world have surfaced in 2016. With the new resolution, the UN committed to a number of reforms: naming the origin countries of alleged perpetrators (with the intention of pressuring states to pursue allegations); accelerating investigations of blue helmets accused of abuses; and publicizing relevant information on a new website. Upon adoption of the resolution, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power declared that the United Nations “will do better to ensure that the blue helmets that we send as your protectors will not become perpetrators.” Female suicide bomber in Ankara                                                                                           This week’s deadly attack in Turkey’s capital was carried out by a woman who had trained across the border with Kurdish militant separatists. Turkey’s Interior Ministry identified twenty-four-year-old Seher Çağla Demir as the attacker who killed thirty-seven people and injured more than 125 by car bomb at a bus stop on Sunday. Initial reports suggested that she had trained with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s Syrian affiliate, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), beginning in 2013; the off-shoot Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) later claimed responsibility for the attack. Women fighters have played a highly visible role in the PKK and YPG, notably in taking Mount Sinjar from the Islamic State in 2015. TAK’s statement about this week’s attack identified Çağla Demir as the first female suicide bomber in its ranks. TAK joins other extremist groups around the world that increasingly enlist women as suicide attackers: while there were only eight female suicide attackers during the 1980s, data suggest there were well over one hundred between 2000-2010. Research shows that attacks carried out by women are more lethal, due in part to their ability to move in targeted areas or populations without arousing suspicion. Women and the Islamic State                                                                                                 New reports, including footage that two Syrian women secretly filmed in Raqqa, add to the evidence that the self-proclaimed Islamic State brutally oppresses women and exerts strict control over the reproductive health of female captives. More than three dozen escaped Yazidi women described methods of contraception forced upon them, including oral and injectable birth control that were shuttled throughout Islamic State stronghold areas via organized supply chains. One physician at a UN-supported clinic in northern Iraq calculated the rate of pregnancy during enslavement of more than 700 recently freed Yazidis to be just 5 percent—substantially lower than the expected fertility rate of 20 to 25 percent—which researchers attributed to contraception. The aggressive use of birth control by the Islamic State is intended to keep the group’s robust sex trade alive: Human Rights Watch reports that “[Islamic State] forces have abducted thousands of Yazidis since August 2014 and committed organized rape, sexual assault, and other horrific crimes against many Yazidi women and girls.”        

Welcome to a special edition of “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, highlighting 2015’s most significant stories about the status of women and girls, was compiled by Anne Connell and Becky Allen.   A year of re-commitment to landmark women’s rights frameworks: The year marked the twentieth anniversary of the historic Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, when 30,000 activists and officials from across the globe convened to adopt a historic Declaration and Platform for Action focused on achieving full participation for women and girls everywhere. This year also marked the fifteenth anniversary of the passage of UNSCR 1325 on women, peace, and security, with a high-level review of global progress towards the resolution’s goals and the passage of UNSCR 2242, which aims to improve implementation. Experts are optimistic that the energy generated in this anniversary year will carry over into 2016 and beyond. A woman pushes a baby stroller after airstrikes on a busy marketplace in Douma, Syria August 12, 2015. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh Syrian refugee crisis: As of December 2015, over 4.4 million Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 75% of whom are women and children. The majority of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict have streamed into Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, where women and girls are uniquely affected by overcrowded shelters, food insecurity, sexual violence, and lack of access to health and educational services. A woman holds a child outside in a rural area outside of Beijing, August 3, 2015. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj China’s new two-child policy: In October, the Chinese Communist Party announced the end of its one-child policy with a new rule permitting all married couples to have up to two children. The effect of this policy shift on China’s skewed sex ratio remains to be seen, but the change represents one important step away from China’s decades-long experiment with repressive family planning policy. Women and ISIS: This year saw numerous reports of systematic slavery, forced marriage, and sexual violence against women and girls, particularly those from the Yazidi religious minority, at the hands of the Islamic State. The extremist group has also actively recruited women from around the world—often through sophisticated digital campaigns—to join its ranks. Milestone elections for Saudi women: The December 12 elections marked the first time in Saudi history that women voted and ran for office. Women candidates overcame sizeable obstacles to make small but significant gains in representation: of the 6,800 candidates competing for 2,106 seats, 979 were women, and 20 women won seats. Nepal’s newly elected President Bidhya Bhandari in Kathmandu, Nepal October 28, 2015. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar “Because it’s 2015”: This year heralded significant advances for women in national governments around the world: Canada appointed a gender-equal cabinet, Nepal elected its first female president, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the Myanmar elections. Tunisian national dialogue quartet: The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a coalition of Tunisian unionists, lawyers, and activists, including Wided Bouchamaoui, the first female president of the national employers’ association. The quartet brought the definition of freedom, women’s rights, and the role of civil society to the forefront of the 2011 constitutional drafting process, thereby setting a regional example for open dialogue and responsive governance. A Vietnamese woman carries a grass basket on a terraced rice paddy field in Mu Cang Chai, where climate change is causing flooding and losses in rice production. REUTERS/Kham Sustainable Development Agenda: The new global development agenda puts women and girls at the center of goals to address the root causes of poverty, climate change, and health, social, and educational inequalities. Adopted unanimously by the 193 UN member states in September, the global Goals represent a landmark achievement to advance women’s rights through development, addressing several critical issues—such as child marriage, violence against women, and equality in property ownership, inheritance, financial services, and natural resources—that were previously overlooked. U.S. Army convoys during the last convoy out of Iraq, December 18, 2011. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton U.S. repeal of combat ban for women: In early December, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that the U.S. military would lift its ban on women in combat roles. This opens up thousands of positions to women—many of whom have already played critical roles as combat pilots and field artillery officers, and in intelligence gathering and cultural support for elite ground units. Tackling femicide in Latin America: Brazil and Colombia joined 15 other countries in the region in passing national femicide laws in March and June, respectively. While this represents a step forward in the region’s effort to combat violence against women, challenges remain in addressing an underlying culture of “machismo” as well as compelling prosecutors, police, and forensics investigators to enforce the new laws.  

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering December 4 to December 11, was compiled by Anne Connell and Dara Jackson-Garrett. Secretary of Defense lifts combat ban for women Last week, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that the U.S. military would lift its ban on women serving in combat roles. While women have been permitted to serve in nearly all aviation capacities since 1993, the full elimination of the ban opens up thousands of ground combat and frontline positions to women. The Marine Corps was the only branch request an exception to the new policy; Secretary Carter reviewed their plan earlier this fall, but noted in his December announcement that there would be no exceptions for any branch. Each service branch has until April 2016 to integrate women into all roles. Despite the official ban, scores of women have already served—or are currently serving—on the frontlines in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Women have played roles in intelligence gathering, as combat pilots, field artillery officers, and even in the ultra-secretive Delta Force. Women have served as vital go-betweens with remote communities in cultural support roles for elite Army Ranger units. One hundred and sixty women have lost their lives in service to their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Women’s access to the Yemen peace talks The latest round of peace talks between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels is slated to begin in Geneva next week. The two parties will negotiate a cease-fire agreement to end the recent nine-month conflict that has devastated the Gulf state—one of the world’s most impoverished and worst scoring countries in terms of gender equality, even before the Houthi insurgency broke out last March. Each delegation will consist of 12 members. A week from the start of negotiations, however, delegations have yet to be finalized, in part because the UN has insisted that women be added to the presently all-male delegations. Houthi officials barred Dr. Shafiqa al-Wahsh, a prominent Yemeni women’s rights leader, from traveling to preparatory meetings. Al-Wahsh is just one of many women’s advocates trying to make inroads to the peace talks: in October, 45 women representing different political parties and ethno-religious factions met with the UN Special Envoy to Yemen for a workshop on the effect the war is having on women and to discuss avenues for women’s participation in formal peacebuilding processes. Understanding women terrorists With new evidence from the FBI that last week’s attack in San Bernardino, California was an act of terrorism, there is growing debate about the radicalization and motives of female terrorists like Tashfeen Malik, one of the two shooters. Notably, women have participated in terrorism carried out by radical groups throughout history—from the Baader-Meinhof Group in 1970s Germany, to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka in 1991, to al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq in the 2000s. This trend continues today: according to the Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram has recently overtaken ISIS as the deadliest terrorist group, and, unlike ISIS, Boko Haram actively deploys women as suicide bombers. Just this week, three female suicide bombers killed over 27 people and injured nearly 100 at a market in Chad. There is vast diversity in the paths to radicalization and the motivations that draw women to terrorist groups, though more research and attention is needed to better understand the relationship between women and terrorism.

The number of Boko Haram fighters, adherents, and supporters is unknown. Speculation ranges from 5,000 to 50,000 “supporters.” The movement continues to be able to recruit, despite sustaining the high levels of casualties claimed by government spokesmen. Its continued ability to kidnap women and to hold them would seem to imply an administrative infrastructure. A recent Pew Research Center poll may offer a hint about how much popular support Boko Haram enjoys. The survey found that about 20 percent of Nigeria’s Muslims had a “favorable” view of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, 61 percent had an “unfavorable” view, and the remaining 19 percent are not accounted for. Improbably, 7 percent of Nigeria’s Christians had a favorable view. It is plausible that those with a “favorable” view of the Islamic State may also have a “favorable” view of Boko Haram. On the other hand, Boko Haram violence is close to home, while that of the Islamic State is far away. That could translate into fewer “favorables” for Boko Haram than for the Islamic State. Muslims are usually estimated to be about half of Nigeria’s population of 182 million, or about 91 million. If only half of those Muslims that have a “favorable’ view of the Islamic State also have a “favorable" view of Boko Haram, that could be around nine million people. That would constitute a large pool from which Boko Haram could recruit. With this in mind, the Buhari government faces a major challenge to end Boko Haram recruitment. That will take time.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, from November 13 to November 20, was compiled by Anne Connell and Katherine Hall. Women and violent extremism In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris carried out by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, understanding women’s role in extremism---including the association between the oppression of women, instability, and terrorism---is increasingly timely and important. A complex web of factors continues to draw some women from varied backgrounds to join the ranks of the Islamic State. Yesterday, a young woman died when she set off an explosive vest as French police raided an apartment building in search of militants associated with the Paris attacks. Elsewhere this week, new Islamic State brutalities against women were discovered. Kurdish forces uncovered a mass grave of over 70 Yazidi women in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, which was ruled by the Islamic State for over a year until extremists were driven out by Kurdish troops earlier in November. The discovery marks the latest atrocity in a long line of documented rapes, forced marriages, and deaths of Yazidi women and girls in Islamic State stronghold territories. Over the past year, Islamic State forces have kidnapped upwards of seven thousand young Yazidi women in part of a campaign against the ethnic minority that United Nations investigators state may amount to acts of genocide. Family law reform in Tunisia Tunisia’s parliament took another step towards gender equality this week by adopting a law that allows women to travel with their minor children without authorization from the children’s father. The World Bank finds that reforms to family law---which governs divorce, inheritance, child custody, and, in some cases, proper identification documents–-are correlated with more girls attending secondary school, more women running businesses, and a closing of the gender wage gap. The recent changes in Tunisia and neighboring Morocco have demonstrated that progressive family law is achievable in Muslim-majority countries and can coexist with Islamic courts. Since the 2011 adoption of a new constitution post-Arab Spring, Tunisia has also set a regional example for women’s inclusion in national politics: quotas for candidate lists in national elections have resulted in a steady rise of women in parliament, and Tunisia became the first country in the region to lift all restrictions on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 2014. New risk report highlights role of women in food security The WorldRiskReport 2015, a comparative evaluation of global food security and disaster risk in 171 countries, was released this week. It cited hotspot regions of risk in Oceania, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the Southern Sahel—where the majority of the so-called V20 (most vulnerable) countries lie—and noted that women and children in these areas are especially vulnerable. However, the report also stressed the positive role that women can play in building food security in their communities. This adds to the wealth of existing research on investment in women and girls in agriculture.