Canadian Women in ISIS: Deradicalization and Reintegration for Returnees

Abstract

In 2014, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared an Islamic Caliphate in Syria and Iraq and called on Muslim men and women to join and help build an Islamic State based on a violent and purist ideology. An unprecedented number of young Muslim women from around the world travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the terrorist group, including many women and girls from Western nations like Canada, the U.K, France and Australia. Young women disappeared from their homes unbeknownst to their parents, crossing the border of Turkey and into Syria to support the cause in their roles as wives to other Western foreign fighters and as mothers to the next generation of ISIS members. Now, both men and women are returning to their home nations, in many cases with small children who do not have any form of identification. While deradicalization and reintegration programs for men have been developed and tested through prison programs and exit programs in the West and abroad, no such model has been created or tested for returning women. Greater research and analysis on women in ISIS is needed to address the distinctive experiences and particular needs of women returning from engagement with ISIS. Given the potential threat of returning women’s continued engagement in terrorist activities and the possibility of terrorist attacks supported by returnees in their home countries, deradicalization and reintegration initiatives are imperative. Along with surveillance activities and the application of the Canadian criminal justice system, NGOs and local organizations dealing specifically with radicalization and returning ISIS members will play a critical role in providing support and assistance to low-risk returnees and their families to support successful resocialization and deradicalization.