Can Women Be More Than Just Victims of Jihadists?

When women and terrorism are mentioned in the same sentence, usually, it is in the context of women as victims. Indeed, systematic rape, mutilation, and the fate of becoming a child bride to jihadists are often how women are impacted by such extremism. However, the role of women perpetrating terrorism is much less discussed and more confusing. To most, it seems incomprehensible how women, especially Western women who are geographically separated from countries ravaged by terrorism, could choose to leave safety to become terrorists. While the media does discuss “jihadi brides” in polarizing and infantilizing ways, the roles of terrorist organizations are not only romantic and sexual: they are involved in recruitment, propaganda and even militancy.

Women can become intertwined with terrorist extremism voluntarily, leaving their homes to become part of jihadist efforts. The reasons behind their choices are often not different from men: they see the lifestyle as empowering and a way of worshiping and are drawn by alienation, marriage, belief in the cause, adventure and inequality. While some do not understand how women could join groups that actively and regularly participate in and propagate sexual violence, many female terrorists actually agree with such gendered and conservative regulations and embrace and publicize the brutality through propaganda and online recruitment. In Western countries, some women will be driven to extremism by Islamophobia, isolation and a confused sense of identity. Moreover, women will often become extremists when they believe that the whole Muslim community is being aggressively persecuted globally and feel anger about the responsiveness of the international world to their persecution. In contrast, the jihadist world offers a utopian vision of building the caliphate, becoming part of a sisterhood, a romanticized religious experience, and a solution to women's pain in the Western world.

Once women become involved in a terrorist group, there are many roles they can take on. Sometimes, but less frequently, these are militant. This is rare because, in most jihadist groups, the basic ideology centers around the power of men and prefers for women to be more or less invisible from society. However, they can contribute to the militant effort in cases of emergency and when permitted by imams. For example, ISIS has increasingly allowed women to be involved in defense since 2014. The Europol report about terrorism trends occurring in the European Union showed children and women playing increasingly more operational and militant roles in terrorist acts. There have even been occurrences where a group of women only planned terrorist attacks, such as in 2016 in France, where three women were arrested for such plotting in Paris.

Another trend becoming increasingly frequent is the use of women as suicide bombers. This is strategically advantageous because security forces tend to assume men are much more likely to participate in violent and dangerous acts, and thus women are less suspicious. Through clothing and even apparent pregnancy, women can avoid arousing suspicion and being flagged by the police. Moreover, the use of female suicide bombers not only allows terrorists to have more recruitment opportunities but garners even more media attention than a male suicide bomber since the participation of women seems much more unexpected and shocking.

Women also often play organizational roles: as recruiters, logistical support, smugglers and messengers. As recruiters, they can radicalize young women, even girls, and encourage them to spread propaganda or actively join the jihadist effort. ISIS uses this as a key strategy: by reversing the traditional recruitment profile, women can not only effectively recruit other women but also, through shaming, garner more male support too. Women are being recognized for their crucial role in jihadists’ long-term strategy and goal in state-building. However, mostly they continue to primarily play a domestic role: cleaning, cooking, making clothes and providing medicine. This does not make their role any less impactful than that of men. On the contrary: they are necessary to build and produce the indivisible infrastructure of their jihadist group by facilitating, enabling and supporting violent extremism through the state roles. Usually, their participation is limited to “honorable roles”: being mothers and wives to the jihadists. 

An overwhelming amount of time, when women are associated with terrorist groups, it is because of marriage, its prospects or family ties with a male terrorist. Their own terrorist acts can often be motivated by these relationships: for example, a mother sending her jihadist son money, mothers hiding their sons from the police, or women traveling countries with their husband for his terrorist purposes. Moreover, women are disproportionately impacted by coercion and forced participation, which must be considered when determining a woman’s criminal responsibility for involvement in terrorist activities. Even though it is important to consider coercion and their familial roles, it must also be noted that women play significant roles in disseminating propaganda, recruitment and logistical organization. Girls or women who want to join or have entered terrorist organizations must be taken seriously for their dangerous role. They often deeply understand the jihadist’s ideology and are willing to participate in extremist acts to propagate those ideas. 

A more well-known phenomenon concerning women’s roles in such groups is controversially called the “jihadi brides,” which describes women or girls who believe they must leave their country, join a terrorist organization, and marry one of the fighters. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization of King’s College London has reported that 4761 foreign women have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria, almost half being from Western countries. In the last decade, a serious problem has arisen. With the collapse of ISIS, these women mostly wound up in detention centers and refugee camps by local Kurdish groups in Syria, raising questions for their countries of origin on how to deal with them. Most countries of origin refuse to repatriate their nationals, as they pose a very serious security risk.

On the other hand, many were coerced, sometimes even at young ages, to join the caliphate, and did not know the extent of what was expected of them. This is controversial because some adamantly argue that these young women were essentially groomed and sexually exploited. In contrast, others cite numerous reports proving that many “jihadi brides” were aware of ISIS’ brutality. A famous example is Shamima Begum, which set a precedent for other women and countries about how a state should interact with these women's rights and obligations attached to their citizenship. In the case of Shamima Begum – a 15-year-old when she left the United Kingdom for Syria to join the ISIS, and re-emerged four years later, hoping to re-enter her homeland – the United Kingdom refused to allow her to be repatriated, and she remains in a refugee center. This is the fate for most women who were once “jihadi brides.”

In conclusion, similarly to men, women are driven to join jihadist groups by violence, religious duty and isolationism, so treating all women joining ISIS as tricked, naive, or sex-driven is a complete misunderstanding. Most women joining such terrorist groups know about and are eager to participate in the horrific acts of terrorism; dubbing them “jihadi brides” is incorrect, overly simplistic, and fails to understand the mechanisms of their radicalization. Women mostly join terrorist groups through family or marriage and are statistically more likely to be coerced into doing so than men. However, women can also play important logistical and support roles and be found in militant positions. The advantages of being a woman, and thus not “suspicious” to security forces, are being increasingly exploited by these groups, as proven by the growing role of women as suicide bombers, messengers and spies. Overall, while it must be taken into consideration that some women express deep remorse and regret about their choice to join terrorist organizations, many do not, and women joining jihadist groups cannot be underestimated: just because they are women does not mean that they cannot play a crucial, and very dangerous role in terrorist efforts.