Researchers estimate that only 4% of all recorded returnees from Iraq and the Syria are women and that those women account for around 5% of women who travelled to the conflict zones.
These figures suggest an urgent need for closer analysis of the reasons why women are not returning.
There is very limited knowledge about the women who remain in the conflict zone, and how their situation is handled will have important implications for long-term de-radicalization and peacebuilding in the region and beyond.
Whereas most research on gender and terrorism has focused on the role of women, new approaches to studying masculinities provide a more nuanced understanding of gendered practices and their relation to radicalization to violence.
For these reasons, European Eye on Radicalization decided to republish the latest report released by the Counter Terrorism Committee of the United Nations Security Council (February 2019).
The reports provides a comprehensive analysis of the latest research related to the gender dimensions of radicalization and the role they play in the response to returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), after Council resolutions 2242 (2015) and 2395 (2017) have tasked CTED to gather gender-sensitive research on the drivers of radicalization to terrorism for women and on the impacts of counter-terrorism strategies on women’s human rights and women’s organizations.
The report primarily draws on the work of academia and think tanks (particularly members of CTED’s Global Research Network (GRN)), but also includes information from international, regional and sub-regional organizations.
The analysis is dived into four main categories:
1. Numbers and Demographics
2. Drivers of Radicalization
3. Gendered Narratives
4. Implications for Counter-Measures.
Click here to do download the report
