WEBVTT - Does Terrorism Have a Gender? 0:00:00.170 --> 0:00:03.890 Before we begin, this is a podcast about terrorism, which 0:00:03.890 --> 0:00:06.580 means we do talk about acts of terror and extreme 0:00:06.580 --> 0:00:10.180 violence sometimes in quite a lot of detail. So you 0:00:10.180 --> 0:00:15.240 might find some of the following material upsetting. Hello, I'm 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.459 Adnan Sarwar. This is Taking Apart Terror, and you might 0:00:19.460 --> 0:00:21.670 recognize at least one on of these voices. 0:00:23.140 --> 0:00:26.980 We cannot find a safe place to live. Please do something. 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:28.591 We're going to look into it very strongly. 0:00:28.591 --> 0:00:28.592 Thank you so much. 0:00:28.592 --> 0:00:31.670 Thank you. And you had the Nobel Prize. 0:00:32.550 --> 0:00:32.809 Yeah. 0:00:33.190 --> 0:00:36.100 That's incredible. They gave it to you for what reason? 0:00:38.670 --> 0:00:41.780 In fact, the citation was for efforts to end the 0:00:41.780 --> 0:00:44.280 use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.360 armed conflict. And the Nobel Laureate, and the other voice 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.059 you heard, was Nadia Murad, the young Yazidi woman standing 0:00:51.060 --> 0:00:54.650 in the Oval Office asking President Trump for help. Her 0:00:54.650 --> 0:00:57.750 family was slaughtered by Daesh, and she was sold as 0:00:57.750 --> 0:01:01.030 a sex slave before she managed to escape. She has 0:01:01.030 --> 0:01:04.429 continued to work tirelessly to raise awareness both of the 0:01:04.430 --> 0:01:07.130 plight of the Yazidi people and of all of those 0:01:07.190 --> 0:01:11.050 who suffer violent abuse during times of war. Women as 0:01:11.050 --> 0:01:14.100 victims of atrocities is a product of terrorism we're probably 0:01:14.100 --> 0:01:17.209 quite familiar with. But what about women as supporters of 0:01:17.209 --> 0:01:20.900 the men who commit those atrocities? Or women as fighters? 0:01:21.170 --> 0:01:25.990 Or counterterrorists? Or policy makers? Or resistance forces? Or as 0:01:25.990 --> 0:01:33.250 we've called this edition, does terrorism have agenda? To most 0:01:33.250 --> 0:01:36.100 of us, the answer is probably yeah, and it's obviously 0:01:36.100 --> 0:01:39.550 male. But women also have a role in Daesh activities 0:01:39.770 --> 0:01:43.640 and in terrorism generally, as well as encountering those activities 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.580 or in raising awareness of their consequences, like Nadia Murad 0:01:47.580 --> 0:01:50.790 is doing. To explore and explain the rules of women 0:01:50.790 --> 0:01:53.670 on both sides of the conflict, I'm joined by three 0:01:53.670 --> 0:01:58.260 experts. Firstly, two of our regular panelists. Dr. Joana Cook 0:01:58.260 --> 0:02:01.410 is Associate Professor of Terrorism and Political Violence at the 0:02:01.410 --> 0:02:05.050 University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Her book, A Woman's 0:02:05.050 --> 0:02:07.630 Place, looks at the role of women in U. S. 0:02:07.630 --> 0:02:11.089 counterterrorism over the past 20 years. Hello, Joana. 0:02:11.100 --> 0:02:12.410 Hi. Nice to meet you. 0:02:12.570 --> 0:02:15.580 And we have Naureen Chowdhury Fink. She's the Director of 0:02:15.580 --> 0:02:18.600 The Soufan Center in New York. And her research has 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.529 also looked at the role of women both as fighters 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.959 and opponents of terrorism. Hi, Naureen. Thank you for joining us. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:25.860 Hi, Adnan. Great to be here. 0:02:26.330 --> 0:02:30.650 And we have Devorah Margolin. She's the Director of Strategic 0:02:30.650 --> 0:02:34.410 Initiatives for the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. 0:02:34.410 --> 0:02:37.480 And she's written extensively on the role of women within 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:38.381 Daesh. Hello, Devorah. 0:02:38.381 --> 0:02:39.899 Hi, thanks for having me. 0:02:40.500 --> 0:02:42.959 So Naureen, if I start with you, I think most people 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.980 have got an impression of how women are treated in 0:02:45.980 --> 0:02:50.340 a society run by Daesh, that they are the victims and 0:02:50.340 --> 0:02:53.300 they've got no status. Is that an oversimplification? 0:02:53.900 --> 0:02:57.410 No, I think that's fairly spot on until recently, the 0:02:57.410 --> 0:03:02.290 image of women, both in terms of operational actors, in 0:03:02.290 --> 0:03:05.330 terms of law enforcement, security policy makers and the general 0:03:05.330 --> 0:03:09.290 public more broadly, I think has been that women are 0:03:09.290 --> 0:03:12.610 passive actors in this space of terrorism. And this is 0:03:12.610 --> 0:03:17.180 despite women having been active in several terrorist and armed 0:03:17.180 --> 0:03:21.130 groups in history. And I think the portrait everyone had 0:03:21.130 --> 0:03:25.010 of a terrorist was a young angry male. And so 0:03:25.010 --> 0:03:28.740 I think that has had serious operational consequences in terms 0:03:28.740 --> 0:03:32.329 of how people think about a threat. And also, certainly 0:03:32.330 --> 0:03:35.570 in terms of the policy and operational responses where gender 0:03:35.790 --> 0:03:40.040 has really been, and to be frank, still is, very 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:41.530 much a new phenomenon. 0:03:42.060 --> 0:03:44.830 Devorah, from the outside, it looks like Daesh has got 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.500 pretty clear roles for men and women. Is that right? 0:03:48.030 --> 0:03:49.500 I think when we talk about women's roles in the 0:03:49.500 --> 0:03:53.870 Islamic State, I divide it into three different thought processes. 0:03:54.150 --> 0:03:57.900 First is how do groups conceptualize women's roles? And then 0:03:57.900 --> 0:04:01.410 how do women conceptualize women's roles? And then what are 0:04:01.410 --> 0:04:04.690 the reality of women's roles under the Islamic State? And 0:04:04.690 --> 0:04:07.140 I think there's a big difference between also women who 0:04:07.250 --> 0:04:09.900 live under the Islamic State and women who support the Islamic 0:04:09.900 --> 0:04:13.130 State from abroad. So if we're talking about how do 0:04:13.130 --> 0:04:16.510 groups conceptualize women's roles, we can look at leadership statements 0:04:16.510 --> 0:04:20.040 or propaganda, and we know that the group conceptualizes women's 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.380 roles as in the private. We hear wives, mothers, but 0:04:23.380 --> 0:04:26.610 also educators of the future generation. If you're ever going 0:04:26.610 --> 0:04:29.020 into public life, it's supposed to be very modest. It's 0:04:29.020 --> 0:04:31.120 supposed to be devote. And if you're doing something in 0:04:31.130 --> 0:04:33.310 public life, it's supposed to be supporting the group. When 0:04:33.310 --> 0:04:36.870 you talk about women's conceptualization of themselves, you can look 0:04:36.870 --> 0:04:39.420 at women's rhetoric online, you can look at videos, you 0:04:39.420 --> 0:04:41.510 can look at their arrest statements or what they've been 0:04:41.510 --> 0:04:44.620 arrested for. And we see this as much more complex. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.730 Women, just like all individuals, men, women, we have different 0:04:48.740 --> 0:04:51.589 motivations and women see their roles differently in groups. Some 0:04:51.589 --> 0:04:53.779 see their roles as wives and mothers and some see their 0:04:53.779 --> 0:04:56.480 roles as fighters. But when we talk about the reality 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.510 of women's lives under the Islamic State, you need to understand 0:04:59.510 --> 0:05:02.830 tying of the ideology to its governance. And so we 0:05:02.830 --> 0:05:06.990 can look at descriptions of victim testimonies are extremely important 0:05:06.990 --> 0:05:10.839 for understanding this, but also details of the Islamic State's bureaucracy. 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.990 Joana, Daesh were trying to create a particular society, weren't 0:05:15.990 --> 0:05:18.040 they? And this is all women's part of that process. 0:05:18.470 --> 0:05:20.830 ISIS really was a state building project. And you think 0:05:20.830 --> 0:05:25.760 about the roles that any state would have, healthcare, education, law 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.370 enforcement, their ideology meant that that was gender segregated. So 0:05:30.370 --> 0:05:32.880 you would have women engaging with women for things like 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:38.070 healthcare, women engaging with women and children for education. And 0:05:38.070 --> 0:05:40.740 then for things like law enforcement, particularly you would have, 0:05:40.770 --> 0:05:44.580 again, like the hisbah, or the Female Morality Police that they go 0:05:44.580 --> 0:05:48.440 around and police other women. And so while women did 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.210 generally have some of these broader rules, the primary role 0:05:52.210 --> 0:05:55.020 that was emphasized for women under Islamic State was in 0:05:55.020 --> 0:05:58.410 the domestic sphere. So really being the wives of jihadist 0:05:58.410 --> 0:06:01.870 husbands, raising the next generation of so- called Cubs. And 0:06:01.870 --> 0:06:05.770 I think when you only focus on who are often 0:06:05.779 --> 0:06:07.680 the men on the front lines holding the guns, you 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.790 really miss the bigger picture. You miss the support networks, 0:06:10.790 --> 0:06:13.620 you miss the ideology and how the ideology travels, you 0:06:13.620 --> 0:06:20.020 miss how intergenerationally things like recruitment and mobilization of these 0:06:20.020 --> 0:06:23.040 ideas and these actors really comes into play. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.450 So only thinking about the men involved here is a 0:06:25.450 --> 0:06:28.270 mistake if we're trying to understand what's actually going on. 0:06:28.700 --> 0:06:31.690 But Naureen, as far as the women are concerned, do 0:06:31.690 --> 0:06:33.849 they want to be there? And is it good for them? 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.240 One big important thing to remember is that these are very 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.950 diverse roles and very diverse impacts. I mean most of 0:06:40.950 --> 0:06:44.760 the policy documents I've seen from international actors still talk 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.810 about the role of women as if there is a 0:06:48.029 --> 0:06:52.339 singular group of women that moves as one. We have 0:06:52.339 --> 0:06:56.860 to remember, these are individuals with motivations. The motivations will 0:06:56.860 --> 0:06:59.610 in some times look exactly the same as young men's, 0:06:59.610 --> 0:07:04.610 just it may materialize differently. But it's the same dynamic 0:07:04.610 --> 0:07:07.520 that it's affecting them whether it's empowerment, whether it's religious 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.580 ideology, whether it is kinship network or the coolness factor, 0:07:11.580 --> 0:07:15.500 whatever it is. Is it good for them? I mean 0:07:16.300 --> 0:07:19.010 to my mind, no. But that's me and I'm not 0:07:19.010 --> 0:07:21.500 there. I think there will be some women who say 0:07:21.500 --> 0:07:25.610 they wish that the utopian caliphate had worked out more 0:07:25.610 --> 0:07:28.360 and had it worked out better, it would've been good 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.100 for them. I think if you're a young Yazidi girl, 0:07:31.100 --> 0:07:34.250 it's not so good for you. And I think we have to 0:07:34.590 --> 0:07:39.070 constantly remember that there are different women and different impacts 0:07:39.070 --> 0:07:41.990 and different motivations. I also just wanted to add that 0:07:42.210 --> 0:07:44.970 we've talked quite a bit about gender as if it's 0:07:44.970 --> 0:07:48.930 just about women, even though ISIS certainly surpassed Al- Qaeda 0:07:48.930 --> 0:07:51.960 in reaching out to women and creating a space where 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.650 they were mobilized. When ISIS tells young men, " Come out 0:07:55.650 --> 0:07:57.770 there, be a real man, it's cool to come out 0:07:57.770 --> 0:08:01.620 and fight, fulfill manly duties, if you're a better fighter, 0:08:01.620 --> 0:08:03.740 if you're a Western fighter, you'll get this many sex 0:08:03.740 --> 0:08:06.840 slaves," they're appealing to very gendered notions of what it 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:07.740 means to be a man. 0:08:08.170 --> 0:08:11.110 So a lot of women will be homemaking and child 0:08:11.300 --> 0:08:14.570 rearing, but some of them will be fighting. Does Daesha 0:08:14.570 --> 0:08:15.270 approve of that? 0:08:15.610 --> 0:08:18.360 The rhetoric and the propaganda that the group is spouting 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.790 is very gendered. And the articles that are aimed to 0:08:20.790 --> 0:08:24.730 women are much more about homemaking and they're not necessarily 0:08:24.730 --> 0:08:30.090 emphasizing fighting. That being said, there is a doctrine which 0:08:30.090 --> 0:08:34.780 the Islamic State follows, which basically comes from a man 0:08:34.780 --> 0:08:38.210 named Abdullah Azzam, which basically says when Muslim land is 0:08:38.210 --> 0:08:41.929 under attack, it becomes an individual duty for all, a 0:08:41.929 --> 0:08:44.470 child without the permission of their parents and a wife 0:08:44.470 --> 0:08:47.120 without the permission of her husband. And so there's this 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.290 concept of offensive and defensive jihad. When you control Muslim 0:08:51.290 --> 0:08:53.550 lands and those Muslim lands are under attack, it becomes 0:08:53.550 --> 0:08:57.880 defensive jihad. And so the Islamic State in its predecessors 0:08:58.230 --> 0:09:00.500 argued that they were in a state of defensive jihad. 0:09:00.500 --> 0:09:03.420 And so we saw, for example, the Islamic State predecessor, Al- 0:09:03.420 --> 0:09:06.950 Qaeda in Iraq, using female suicide bombers. The declaration of 0:09:06.950 --> 0:09:10.470 the caliphate changed everything for the Islamic State. Defensive jihad 0:09:10.470 --> 0:09:12.640 no longer existed. And all of a sudden, the group 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.990 was claiming they were doing offensive jihad. They weren't just 0:09:14.990 --> 0:09:17.390 a state, they were a caliphate. And so women were 0:09:17.390 --> 0:09:20.959 pushed back into private roles specifically in combat. But as 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.100 we get towards 2016, coalition forces are bombarding the Islamic 0:09:25.100 --> 0:09:28.240 State, the state's becoming weaker, that the rhetoric really starts 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.300 to change. And we see this emphasis on maybe that 0:09:31.300 --> 0:09:34.179 defensive jihad is coming. And this is a big actual 0:09:34.179 --> 0:09:37.079 academic debate that we have. The debate hasn't fully been 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.559 solved, but we do know that there was several women 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.002 who took part in the last stand of (inaudible) . 0:09:41.550 --> 0:09:44.829 And so this is something that we continue to track 0:09:44.830 --> 0:09:47.110 and it's important to understand this rhetoric, because we want 0:09:47.110 --> 0:09:50.290 to know if the Islamic State or other groups claim 0:09:50.290 --> 0:09:52.660 that defensive jihad is there. That means that we will 0:09:52.660 --> 0:09:53.910 see women participate. 0:09:53.910 --> 0:09:56.090 And we know there were women from all over the 0:09:56.090 --> 0:09:59.960 world who responded to the Daesh call to action. How were they seen? 0:10:00.250 --> 0:10:02.780 I think when we talk about women who want to 0:10:02.780 --> 0:10:06.590 be there, women who are motivated who have perhaps traveled 0:10:06.590 --> 0:10:09.920 from abroad to join the group, many of these women 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.220 are motivated by the ideology of the group, but don't 0:10:14.220 --> 0:10:17.990 necessarily live under its control. And so we see women 0:10:17.990 --> 0:10:20.240 such as the three women in Kenya who carried out 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.820 a suicide bombing in 2016, or Tashfeen Malik who carried 0:10:23.820 --> 0:10:27.119 out an attack in San Bernardino in 2015, who carry 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.350 out these attacks in the name of the Islamic State. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.250 The Islamic State will never condemn these women. They'll praise 0:10:33.250 --> 0:10:35.370 them. They'll say, " Look, these women fought even when they 0:10:35.370 --> 0:10:38.410 didn't have to." But it's not mandatory on women at 0:10:38.410 --> 0:10:38.880 that time. 0:10:39.429 --> 0:10:42.620 What is important to highlight as well is that not 0:10:42.620 --> 0:10:45.130 only do you see women who are inspired by the 0:10:45.130 --> 0:10:49.220 organization, you've got individuals like Safa Bular in the UK 0:10:49.220 --> 0:10:51.740 who was charged with terrorism offenses. We've had a number 0:10:51.740 --> 0:10:54.850 of female attacks conducted by women in places like Indonesia 0:10:54.850 --> 0:10:57.990 as well. And so we do see individuals who are 0:10:57.990 --> 0:11:01.390 either individually inspired by the organization and act independent of 0:11:01.390 --> 0:11:05.150 them. We have seen some of these attacks perpetrated where 0:11:05.150 --> 0:11:08.020 some of the perpetrators have had a link to somebody 0:11:08.020 --> 0:11:10.790 in Iraq and Syria. And then we've seen those in 0:11:10.790 --> 0:11:15.199 Iraq and Syria who have actually lived under Daesh. And so 0:11:15.809 --> 0:11:19.980 for example, in 2017, when forces were taking back the 0:11:19.980 --> 0:11:23.010 city of Mosul, we saw ISIS deploy dozens of female 0:11:23.010 --> 0:11:24.120 suicide bombers as well. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.209 And Joana, I know there's something called the Peshmerga, the 0:11:27.210 --> 0:11:30.580 Peshmerga forces, they're mainly Kurdish militia who are trying to 0:11:30.580 --> 0:11:33.280 battle Daesh. Are women active in those as well? 0:11:33.620 --> 0:11:38.280 Since Daesh has established itself in Iraq and Syria, there 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.110 have been local forces that have been fighting against it. 0:11:41.110 --> 0:11:43.599 And the Kurds have been at the forefront of this. 0:11:44.010 --> 0:11:46.420 And what we have seen with Kurdish forces as well 0:11:46.420 --> 0:11:49.840 is that we have female Peshmerga forces as well. So 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.230 we've seen women on the frontline battling Daesh. And the 0:11:54.230 --> 0:11:58.459 battle to recapture Mosul and also really encapsulated the diversity of 0:11:58.460 --> 0:12:00.210 roles that women were playing in this. We saw women on 0:12:00.210 --> 0:12:03.040 the frontlines on both sides, both being deployed as suicide 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.040 bombers, but also really battling to reclaim this territory. 0:12:10.970 --> 0:12:14.730 Resistance against the invasion and occupation came in many forms, 0:12:14.900 --> 0:12:18.739 including from ordinary civilians, risking their lives to try and 0:12:18.740 --> 0:12:22.069 stop the reign of terror. And because Daesh didn't see 0:12:22.070 --> 0:12:25.280 women as any credible threat, they often went under the 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:30.910 radar. In 2014, Daesh slaughtered its way through Saddam Hussein's 0:12:30.910 --> 0:12:37.700 hometown of Tikrit, murdering over 1, 700 Iraqi army recruits. The 0:12:37.700 --> 0:12:41.380 survivors ran, but found themselves cut off, trapped on the 0:12:41.380 --> 0:12:44.090 banks of a river across from the town of al- 0:12:44.090 --> 0:12:48.939 Alam. Bravely, the people of the town got rowing boats and 0:12:48.940 --> 0:12:52.740 ferried the soldiers across, while their comrades provided cover from 0:12:52.740 --> 0:12:58.840 the bushes. One of those who helped in the rescue 0:12:58.940 --> 0:13:01.370 and then a huge personal risk to herself and her 0:13:01.370 --> 0:13:04.970 family sheltered many of the soldiers in her home was 0:13:05.010 --> 0:13:08.660 Alia Khalaf al- Jabouri, now better known as Um Qusay. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.080 Her husband and eldest son had been killed by Daesh 0:13:12.620 --> 0:13:15.090 two years earlier and she was living in al- Alam 0:13:15.270 --> 0:13:19.110 with her remaining children. A poor widow, mother and grandmother 0:13:19.290 --> 0:13:22.530 who seemed very ordinary, but was about to show how 0:13:22.530 --> 0:13:24.020 extraordinary she is. 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:32.040 (Arabic) . They would bring to me, for example, seven 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.160 or 10 people depending on the circumstances. They would change 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.720 their clothes, eat and drink. And in the afternoon, I 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.720 would take them to Kirkuk by car with my daughters 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:47.410 because at first, Daesh did not stop vehicles transporting niqab 0:13:47.410 --> 0:13:51.050 wearing women. Finally, seven of the men were left in 0:13:51.050 --> 0:13:54.829 the village of Hojāj which is 40 kilometers away from 0:13:54.830 --> 0:13:57.190 us. One of them was a friend of my son, 0:13:57.190 --> 0:14:00.110 Khalid. He phoned my son and told him that Daesh 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:06.100 had started entering homes, slaughtering every one they found there. 0:14:06.380 --> 0:14:09.040 He said that they had gone down to the riverbank 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.630 and for three days, they were eating grass with no 0:14:12.630 --> 0:14:16.280 food or water. Khalid came to me and said, " Mom, 0:14:16.370 --> 0:14:19.610 this is what is happening." So I told him, " Take 0:14:19.610 --> 0:14:22.560 your sister and go, your sister is not better than 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.070 the young people whom you will bring back. Take her 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.002 and go." (Arabic) . 0:14:34.220 --> 0:14:38.180 Um Qusay sent two of her sons, Khalid and Rafid, and her daughter 0:14:38.180 --> 0:14:41.090 to fetch the men. While they were gone, she got 0:14:41.090 --> 0:14:43.500 a message saying that her two sons had been killed. 0:14:44.110 --> 0:14:46.180 But thankfully, it turned out not to be the case. 0:14:46.690 --> 0:14:50.790 And finally, they returned safely bringing the soldiers. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.860 (Arabic) . They stayed with me for 17 days and 0:14:56.860 --> 0:15:00.150 all the time, the fighting was going on around us as I 0:15:00.150 --> 0:15:03.230 was sheltering them sitting in the living room of my 0:15:03.230 --> 0:15:07.010 house. Even though I couldn't have done anything if Daesh 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.990 came to the house, I knew deep down that if 0:15:09.990 --> 0:15:12.520 I could not to protect them, I would die before 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.360 them. I mean I would rather die than let the 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.840 intruders in. Of course, I was not the only one 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:24.030 who hit soldiers. Everyone in al- Alam did. IS began 0:15:24.030 --> 0:15:27.620 searching for whoever came from the south and slaughtered them 0:15:27.740 --> 0:15:31.540 and their host families. Where should I take them? I 0:15:31.540 --> 0:15:34.650 went to a professor named Abdul Haq and said to him, " 0:15:35.530 --> 0:15:38.440 I have seven soldiers left and I don't know what 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.000 to do. I want you to make fake IDs for 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:47.002 them." He said, " Leave it to me." (Arabic) . 0:15:49.890 --> 0:15:52.990 Once she'd secured IDs for the seven soldiers, it was 0:15:52.990 --> 0:15:53.780 time to smuggle them out. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.110 (Arabic) . I rented the (inaudible) and put in 0:15:59.110 --> 0:16:02.980 it my murdered sons' two teenage daughters, my own daughters, 0:16:03.090 --> 0:16:06.070 my luggage, as well as my sister- in- law. We 0:16:06.070 --> 0:16:08.760 all got into the car to conceal them so that 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.700 when Daesh stopped us at checkpoints, they would see only 0:16:11.700 --> 0:16:15.140 women. I put them in the middle and girls sat 0:16:15.140 --> 0:16:18.640 around them on both sides. At every Daesh checkpoint, the 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.310 driver and I raised our hands and said, " May you 0:16:21.310 --> 0:16:24.710 be victorious with God's blessings," to make them think that 0:16:24.710 --> 0:16:28.380 we were supporting them and to let us pass. Then 0:16:28.380 --> 0:16:31.550 we reached the Peshmerga road block in Kirkuk. The Peshmerga 0:16:31.550 --> 0:16:34.979 fighter took the identification of one of the smuggled soldiers 0:16:35.350 --> 0:16:39.610 and asked him about his name. The soldier did not 0:16:39.610 --> 0:16:43.280 remember his fake name. The Peshmerga fighter said, " You have 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.870 fabricated your papers and you need to get out of 0:16:45.870 --> 0:16:48.380 the car." Then I had no choice but to bang 0:16:48.380 --> 0:16:51.010 my head against the car door with force so that 0:16:51.010 --> 0:16:54.430 my head would split open. Blood flowed and trickled down 0:16:54.430 --> 0:16:57.670 my face immediately and the girls started shouting, " Our mother 0:16:57.670 --> 0:17:00.370 has died! Our mother has died!" The fighter who was 0:17:00.370 --> 0:17:03.630 Kurdish asked, " What is wrong with your mother?" They said, " 0:17:03.630 --> 0:17:06.380 She is diabetic and her blood sugar has spiked, and 0:17:06.380 --> 0:17:08.800 we have brought her to Kirkuk for this reason. But 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.960 you are stopping us from proceeding." He said, " You are 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.619 such a liar and you will be caught in Kirkuk." 0:17:15.260 --> 0:17:25.002 He threw the identification at us and we passed. (Arabic) . 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.170 So Joana, your book A Woman's Place, was the research 0:17:34.170 --> 0:17:36.260 you did for that inspired by the fact that women 0:17:36.260 --> 0:17:38.709 are overlooked when it comes to this conflict? 0:17:38.990 --> 0:17:42.530 Throughout history, women have had roles in terrorist organizations as 0:17:42.530 --> 0:17:47.409 leaders, fighters, as fundraisers, recruiters, any role that you can 0:17:47.460 --> 0:17:51.140 associate with a terrorist organization, a woman has likely held 0:17:51.140 --> 0:17:54.720 that at some point. What was really different with ISIS 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.350 in particular though was that women came to the forefront 0:17:57.350 --> 0:18:00.260 in ways that were visible as never before. So we 0:18:00.260 --> 0:18:05.380 saw women from Canada, from the U.S., from Russia, Kazakhstan, all 0:18:05.380 --> 0:18:08.560 over the world going and joining this organization. And so 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.500 what my research was really trying to do is look 0:18:11.500 --> 0:18:15.070 at not only the roles that women have played within ISIS, 0:18:15.070 --> 0:18:17.869 but also on the flip side, women's roles encountering these 0:18:17.869 --> 0:18:21.730 organizations. The question was really prompted by the idea of 0:18:21.730 --> 0:18:24.250 what is a woman's place in relation to terrorism and 0:18:24.250 --> 0:18:28.020 counterterrorism, because it has been such a gap in policy 0:18:28.020 --> 0:18:30.869 and practice and we would say in research. But in 0:18:30.869 --> 0:18:32.700 fact, we can demonstrate that there has been quite a 0:18:32.700 --> 0:18:34.820 bit of focus on it even if that research itself 0:18:34.820 --> 0:18:35.780 hasn't gained a lot of attention. 0:18:36.750 --> 0:18:39.970 Naureen, are women involved in counterterrorism? And if they're not, 0:18:39.970 --> 0:18:41.550 why not? And should they be? 0:18:42.150 --> 0:18:45.609 In many countries, you won't find women in senior military 0:18:45.609 --> 0:18:48.920 or operational roles. It's not very diverse when you look 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.300 at who is thinking about counterterrorism and who is delivering 0:18:52.300 --> 0:18:55.869 counterterrorism. And certainly, when I've talked to whether it's intelligence 0:18:55.869 --> 0:19:00.090 agencies, or law enforcement, or border security forces, and I 0:19:00.090 --> 0:19:02.280 ask them, " Do you think about gender? Do you think 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.130 about the roles of women?" They're not thinking about them 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.940 either as a perpetrator to guard against, or as a 0:19:08.940 --> 0:19:13.180 victim to protect, or as an ally in prevention. I'll 0:19:13.180 --> 0:19:16.420 give you a snapshot. I was sitting in a country 0:19:17.290 --> 0:19:22.379 in a room full of intelligence police and military officers. 0:19:22.820 --> 0:19:26.250 And I was asking about gender and how they deal 0:19:26.250 --> 0:19:30.750 with returnees from the conflict zone. And I said, " Well 0:19:30.750 --> 0:19:32.919 what do you do with the women that come back?" 0:19:33.290 --> 0:19:36.260 And they looked at me and said, " Well nothing. I 0:19:36.260 --> 0:19:39.440 mean they go home to their towns." And I said, " 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.830 But do you do any risk analysis? Do you check 0:19:42.830 --> 0:19:45.619 up?" Because as we've all talked about, sometimes it could 0:19:45.619 --> 0:19:49.389 have been the women themselves that were the prime driver 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.960 for radicalization, right? And they looked at me and they said, " 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.690 But why would we do that? It's not like women 0:19:55.690 --> 0:19:59.410 ever want to go and it's not like when they 0:19:59.410 --> 0:20:02.550 come back, they would do anything because women always want 0:20:02.550 --> 0:20:06.790 peace and mothers always want peace." In that story, you 0:20:06.790 --> 0:20:11.330 can see a very real set of assumptions that were 0:20:11.330 --> 0:20:15.810 affecting operational responses. And in fact, of course, they looked 0:20:15.810 --> 0:20:17.930 at me like I was crazy for even asking this 0:20:17.930 --> 0:20:22.689 question. So I don't know if having more women necessarily 0:20:22.690 --> 0:20:26.139 will lead to better counterterrorism. I think all indications are 0:20:26.300 --> 0:20:31.130 yes. We certainly would have, I think, a more accurate 0:20:31.130 --> 0:20:35.590 picture of what's going on and a greater set of 0:20:35.619 --> 0:20:39.050 instruments in the counterterrorism toolkit if we had more women 0:20:39.050 --> 0:20:40.420 at the decision making table. 0:20:40.430 --> 0:20:41.930 Devorah, do you agree? 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.500 It is important to have women in the room, but we call it add women 0:20:45.500 --> 0:20:48.210 and stir. So don't just have women in the room, 0:20:48.210 --> 0:20:51.090 but give them agency to be part of the conversation 0:20:51.090 --> 0:20:54.030 is extremely important. If a woman is in the room 0:20:54.030 --> 0:20:56.590 and she's not part of the conversation, or engaged in 0:20:56.590 --> 0:21:00.100 the conversation, or able to advocate for what counterterrorism should 0:21:00.100 --> 0:21:02.920 look like. So there was a lot of criticism for 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.080 some countering violent extremism programs that basically were saying, " Mothers, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.500 us mothers should be in charge of ratting out their 0:21:09.500 --> 0:21:12.560 children or telling the government if they're worried about their 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.040 children," without understanding the implications of that and understanding the 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.129 implications of breaking down family boundaries or values. And so 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.910 women need to be part of the conversation as both 0:21:22.910 --> 0:21:26.540 victims, perpetrators, and those who are caught up in the system. 0:21:26.830 --> 0:21:29.240 I wanted to ask about those camps in Northern Syria, there's 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.609 talk of women getting together and mobilizing. Joana, is this 0:21:32.609 --> 0:21:34.450 something we should be paying more attention to? 0:21:34.950 --> 0:21:37.050 When we look at a place like Al Hol camp in Northeast 0:21:37.050 --> 0:21:40.630 Syria right now for example, there's about 60,000 residents still 0:21:40.630 --> 0:21:43.510 there, of which 10,000 are foreigners, of which 3, 000 0:21:43.510 --> 0:21:47.359 are foreign women, and then alongside 7, 000 of their 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.950 often very young children who are now facing extremely dangerous 0:21:50.950 --> 0:21:55.710 and dire circumstances. They're not charged with any offenses. They 0:21:55.710 --> 0:21:58.169 have not been held accountable for their actions. They have 0:21:58.170 --> 0:22:02.790 not faced trial. They have not gone through deradicalization programming. 0:22:03.350 --> 0:22:06.010 And for those that have been victimized, there has not 0:22:06.010 --> 0:22:10.580 been adequate support. The longer these populations stay there, there 0:22:10.580 --> 0:22:15.879 is a swath of undesirable options for these populations going 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:20.150 forward. And so whether it's having them escape, whether it 0:22:20.150 --> 0:22:23.340 is having some of them potentially radicalize their children. There 0:22:23.340 --> 0:22:24.879 have been a number of murders already in Al Hol 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.159 camp, for example, this year. And so even facing dangers 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.890 within the camp, governments do need to step up, take 0:22:30.900 --> 0:22:33.750 care of their populations, repatriate them and really manage them 0:22:33.750 --> 0:22:35.560 at home in a way that is controlled by those 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.739