Female Foreign Terrorist Fighters in Da’Esh: Victims or Perpetrators?
77 Pages Posted: 3 May 2017
Date Written: December 1, 2016
Abstract
Da’esh has stunned the world with its gross human rights abuses, gendered violence, practices of sexual slavery and widespread rape. Yet, the organization has attracted a large amount of female recruits. According to Europol, 40% of all foreign terrorist fighters going from the Netherlands are female, and 20% leaving from Finland and Germany are female. Following the pattern of most other women in terrorist organizations, the women who carry out the hijra to the caliphate are, however, not criminalized or feared to the extent that their male counterparts are. Rather they are met with question marks and narratives attempting to pigeonhole them. Why are these women referred to as “jihadi brides” rather than “female foreign terrorist fighters”? Why, as the quote above highlights, are these women narrated in sexual and other “vile terms”? How should the West react to these women if they return?
Keywords: terrorism, international criminal law
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