COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM WHILE RESPECTING THE RIGHTS AND AUTONOMY OF WOMEN AND THEIR COMMUNITIES

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At present the world is gripped with fear of rising violent extremism. Although research shows that societies that respect women’s rights are less prone to extremism, women’s rights should not be securitized and should not be seen as an instrumental tool for countering extremism. Rather, women’s rights are an end in and of themselves.


Key messages

  • Across regions, a common thread shared by extremist groups is that in every instance their advance has been coupled with attacks on the rights of women and girls—rights to education, to public life, and to decision-making over their own bodies.
  • Counter-terrorism and CVE overlook the spectrum of roles that women play in both preventing and participating in violent extremism. The women peace and security agenda provides a framework for a de-militarized and preventive response to terrorism and violent extremism, and several recent international mandates acknowledge this correlation.
  • The risk of co-opting and instrumentalizing women’s rights is high. Where women’s advocacy becomes too closely associated with a government’s counter terrorism agenda, the risk of backlash against women’s rights defenders, in often already volatile environments, increases.
  • Women are also impacted by counter-terrorism tactics: securitization can increase women’s insecurity and stricter banking procedures and donor policies can impact women’s organizations adversely. As such, women are ‘squeezed’ between terrorism and counter-terrorist responses.

Key recommendations

  • Protect women’s and girls’ rights at all times and ensure that efforts to counter violent extremism strategies do not stereotype or instrumentalize women and girls.
  • Allow local women autonomy and leadership in determining their priorities and strategies in CVE.
  • Invest in research and data on women’s roles in terrorism, such as identifying the drivers that lead to their radicalization and involvement with terrorist groups and the impacts of counterterrorism strategies on their lives.
  • Ensure gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation of all counter-terrorism and CVE interventions. This should specifically address the impact on women and girls, including through use of gender-related indicators and collection of sex-disaggregated data.

FULL RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Detach programming on women’s rights from counter-terrorism and extremism, and all military planning and military processes. Any effort at empowering them should be through civilian assistance to the women themselves or to development and human rights agencies.
  • Protect women’s and girls’ rights at all times and ensure that efforts to counter violent extremism strategies do not stereotype, instrumentalize or securitize women and girls.
  • Work with local women and institutions to engage women at all levels, and allow local women autonomy and leadership in determining their priorities and strategies in countering extremism.
  • Build the capacity of women and girls, including mothers, female community and religious leaders, and women’s civil society groups to engage in efforts to counter violent extremism in a manner tailored to local contexts. This can include the provision of specialized training, facilitating, training of women religious leaders to work as mentors in their communities, increasing women’s access to secular and religious education to amplify their voices against extremist narratives and supporting mother’s schools. All this capacity building should again be through civilian agencies and with women peacebuilders deciding the priorities and the content of their programmes.
  • Invest in research and data collection on women’s roles in terrorism including identifying the drivers that lead to their radicalization and involvement with terrorist groups, and the impacts of counterterrorism strategies on their lives. This should include the impact of counter-terrorism laws and regulations on the operation of women’s civil society organizations, and their access to resources to undertake activities relating to countering violent extremism.
  • Ensure gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation of all counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism interventions. This should specifically address the impact on women and girls, including through use of gender-related indicators and collection of sex-disaggregated data.
  • Develop gender-sensitive disengagement, rehabilitation and reintegration programmes that address the specific needs of women and girls. Draw upon the lessons learned from disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) initiatives under the women, peace and security agenda.
  • Ensure accountability mechanisms and processes mandated to prevent and respond to extremist violence have the necessary gender expertise to fulfill their mandates.