The following conclusions and recommendations are based on the work of a team of international experts that held its first meeting on Female Migration to ISIS in Venice, Italy during April 2016 with the financial support of NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Program. The meeting was organized by Professor Emilio C. Viano. The names of the participants are listed. This document contains their suggestions based on their expert knowledge of the issues.
In order to effectively address/counter/neutralize the areas in which ISIS/ISIL/IS has had success in its strategy, operation and tactics, the international community must deal with the following three issues: (A) multifaceted recruitment counter-efforts; (B) looking at women as survivors of ISIS on a continuum from free agent to victim; (C) the need to investigate and monitor the movement of people with concern and respect for human rights and international treaties.
(A) MULTIFACETED RECRUITMENT COUNTER-EFFORTS
Recruitment counter-efforts need to be multi-faceted and include the push and pull pressures that impact and influence the decisions of those who consider joining ISIS.
The multi-faceted aspect of the counter-effort to be effective must include using social media to send messages that resonate and use informal networks to reach out into the community. Push and pull factors are important.
Push Factors
Push factors are the social, economic and political factors that cause one to consider ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAESH as the legitimate answer to grievances that one has suffered in the West, both personally and community wide. Personal and social isolation and marginalization, identity issues, and economic, educational and employment challenges must be recognized and addressed. With the increased access to education by women, it is necessary to acknowledge and take into account that women also make political choices. There are many examples of programs that can be started in communities to learn, share and encourage youth not to join and to successfully deal with the personal, employment and societal problems that they encounter.
Pull Factors
Pull factors are harder to understand and address. The essence of pull factors is the successful manipulation by recruiters to influence the context that the person being recruited is in and manipulate factors that result in compelling the person to want, need and have to join.
Examples are:
Manipulation of religion;
Using hadiths to justify everything from violence to revenge to justice to rights;
Raising questions of identity among people who are in the West and are at the time ripe for recruitment, particularly adolescents, teenagers and young adults;
Preying on the internal struggle that youth are going through to help achieve ISIS goals.
(B) LOOKING AT WOMEN AS SURVIVORS OF ISIS ON A CONTINUUM FROM FREE AGENT TO VICTIM
Women as potential recruits and participants in ISIS need to be looked at on a spectrum with agency at one end and victim at the other and with the goal to make them survivors of ISIS.
Whether a woman has been recruited and travelled to Iraq or Syria or participated in ISIS work in the West or has been engaging online and has been convinced of ISIS legitimacy, the response to her experience needs to be nuanced and have follow up.
The main questions to ask are: “Does she have agency?” or “Is she victimized?” The suggestion was to look at her experience on a spectrum with agency at one end and victim at the other and map women in between the two ends and all potential recruits.
One sees right away that there has to be a tailored response to each woman’s case. A general approach will not work. It is imperative to consider the individual and a range of responses.
Each woman has a specific social experience, economic position, political opinion, geographical location, educational exposure, family structure and historical journey.
The response needs to be credible and empowering in order to have maximum effect.
(C) MOVEMENTS OF PEOPLE NEED TO BE MONITORED WITH CONCERN AND RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL TREATIES
An agenda of surveillance on flows of people in order to stop this phenomenon needs to be cognizant that people are migrating to seek refuge, find economic relief or reunite with their families and they can be caught in the crossfire of efforts to prevent terrorism.
Surveillance was discussed at many levels (local community levels, national intelligence levels, global platforms), which can have negative effects on people. If informal community reporting is used, this can have a direct negative impact on community cohesion. Surveillance should not be tied to criminal sanctions. National intelligence can create criminal justice sanctions that affect people for the rest of their lives. Monitoring through satellites and drones creates global insecurity and leads to conflict. Diversity in security forces is a must.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The following actors can do the following.
1. Government
Government should invest in policy tools and development programs for communities vulnerable to violent extremism.
What?
This must include ethnic communities, newcomer populations and indigenous people.
How?
Use a rights-based consultative process to develop strategy, policies and programs that are in compliance with international legal obligations.
Why?
Encourage a shift away from strictly military and security responses to addressing governance and development deficits in the country.
Dynamics
People involved and/or affected must feel that they can safely engage with governmental actors.
2. Community
The community must respond from an empowered position to be vocal with two aims:
Open up a debate in the community on identity often foisted on them (e.g. the “melting pot”).
Create a safe exchange of information between the government and people.
Factors that need to be taken into account are:
Different modalities in which communities operate, different structures, precarious legal status of non-citizens and right to speak;
The importance of supporting parents and the community in their efforts to counter violent extremism;
Making sure that a gender dimension shapes programs and policies related to countering violent extremism;
Giving due consideration to public–private partnerships;
Instituting and steadily supporting programs against ghettoization;
Supporting and strengthening community crime prevention programs in general, especially those that focus on young people.
3. Academic
Empirical, comprehensive, ethical and relevant research is needed on push/pull factors:
Push/pull factors, identity.
What is and what is perceived, religion, gender.
4. Religious
It is necessary to build the capacity to intervene by those considered to have legitimacy by those being recruited, so as to have the most impact and connection with those who might go to fight.
5. Media
Mainstream media sources and reporting need to be diversified, so as to ensure that all communities feel recognized and respected. The aim is a balanced image for all.
6. Support Services
A strategic approach has to be developed to accept and support returnees with focus on:
Protection;
Rehabilitation;
Reintegration;
Prevention.
INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS AND COORDINATION
International organizations, like the European Union, NATO, OSCE, the United Nations and others should:
Act as facilitators;
Bring together different countries;
Identify best practices and lessons learned;
Strive to reach commonality and even uniformity in legal definitions, requirements, safeguards and penalties;
Coordinate and cooperate in modeling interventions and various responses, holding what may be considered akin to joint maneuvers simulating a moment of crisis;
Jointly establish a databank that can allow a timely prevention, neutralization and defusing of recruitment campaigns, travel arrangements, and actual movements of recruits, especially vulnerable adolescents, and deploying a coordinated response;
Protect refugees as required by international law, improving their conditions in the host country, pushing back strongly against hate and racist speech.
INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE ON FEMALE MIGRATION TO ISIS
Co-Chairs
AYATT, Mohammed, Senior Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal
VIANO, Emilio C., President, International Society of Criminology
Members
BAILEY, Joan, Safer Luton Partnership, Luton, UK
BARNA, Cristian, National Intelligence Academy, Bucharest, Romania
BEN ISRAEL, Galit, Project of Identity, Terror and CyberSpace, Institute of Identity Research (IDmap), Tel Aviv, Israel
BOGNOE, Camilla, Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe, Vienna, Austria
BOUZIANE, Malika, University of Oran, Algeria
CHERIF, Inssaf, Public Prosecution Service, The Hague, The Netherlands
DE LEEDE, Seran, International Center for Counter Terrorism, The Hague, The Netherlands
DAVIDIAN, Allison, United Nations Secretariat, UN Women, New York, USA
DHILLON, Jasteena, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada
EHRT, Daniel Tobias, Ministry of the Interior, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
FIUSA MOURA, Vanessa, International Lawyer, Washington, DC, USA
FRAIHI, Hind, Freelance Writer, Author of Undercover in Klein Marokko, Belgium
GOWRINATHAN, Nimmi, City College, New York, USA
GUL, Imtiaz, Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan
HEKIM, Hakan, Global Policy and Strategy, Ankara, Turkey
JAMAL, Bahija, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco
LE COMTE, Leonard, USAG Italy, U.S. Department of Defense, Vicenza, Italy
LUNA, David, U.S. State Department, Anti-Crime Programs INTL, Washington, DC, USA
MINNION, Megan, Adviser for NATO’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, Brussels, Belgium
PERESIN, Anita, Office of the National Security Council, Zagreb, Croatia
SAN QUIRICO BURILLO, Alejandra, NATO’s Office of Women, Peace and Security, Brussels, Belgium
SARNECKI, Jerzy, University of Stockholm, Sweden
SHAISTA, Jasmeen, Uks Research, Resource and Publication Center. Islamabad, Pakistan
SHORER, Marina, Institute Identity Research, Tel Aviv, Israel
VAN BROEKHOVEN, Lia, Human Security Collective, The Hague, The Netherlands
VASSILIOU, Marios, Athens, Greece
ZAFAR, Aniq, CEO, CRS Public Relations, Islamabad, Pakistan
Acknowledgements
The assistance of Professor Jasteena Dhillon of Canada in preparing parts of this summary is gratefully acknowledged.
Emilio C. Viano has earned several law degrees in the U.K. and U.S., a M.A. at the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. “summa cum laude” at New York University. He has been Professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs, the Washington College of Law and other universities worldwide. He is President of the International Society of Criminology. Presently, he serves on the Steering Committee of the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development at the World Bank and Co-leader of the Working Group on Empowerment and Equity for Diverse Communities. Recently, he was Senior Consultant to the project on Preventing and Combating Cybercrime at the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency. He has received many awards, including, in 2012, the “Hans Von Hentig” Medal of the World Society of Victimology and Fulbright Scholar awards. He was the Program Chair of the 17th and 18th World Congresses of Criminology. Recently, he was a General Reporter on Cybercrime for the International Association of Penal Law. Dr. Viano has published extensively and is a recognized political analyst interviewed regularly on CNN, and various television, radio stations and newspapers in the USA and abroad.
