Politic?

The Brave New World of Jihadi Women

"There are clearly many human smugglers working within Syria right now, helping Syrian civilians escape the violence, and I wonder if there is a similar, perhaps even growing market, for those trying to escape after joining ISIL."
Joana Cook, researcher studying links between woman and jihad, King's College London

"It's particularly difficult for these families [of European Muslim girls responding to call to jihad]. For them, radicalization is happening on the Internet and outside the family sphere."
"For a girl of 14, I believe we can clearly save her from herself and save her from these barbarians."
Sebastien Pietrasanta, French lawmaker

Despite brutality, ISIL continues to recruit European teens

Severine Ali Mehenni holds pictures of her daughter Sahra, at her home in Lezignan Corbieres, France on October 2. Sahra is one of the more than 100 girls from France alone who have left to join Islamist militants in Syria. Fred Scheiber / AP Photo
Approximately six hundred Western girls and young woman have responded to the Islamist call to join jihadis in their brave new world of Islamism's latest caliphate. Inspired by the perceived romance of a new world opening before them, and anxious to become part of it, they conspire to leave their countries of birth and/or residence without the knowledge of their families, and travel clandestinely to Syria to become 'wives' of terrorists and 'mothers' of a newer generation.

Of the 600 girls and young women who did travel abroad to join the extremists only two are known to have escaped the war zone and the future that awaited them there. On the other hand it is estimated that up to 30 percent of the male foreign fighters have left the places they were so eager to arrive at, having experienced what a war zone is like and in particular one with no concessions made to human rights and compassion for others.

Squeamishness over torture, mutilation, beheading and crucifixion does not a good jihadi make. Distaste over difficulties with hygiene and modern-day conveniences, do not a good jihadi-bride make. Material possessions and pride in ownership, along with the willingess to set one's morals and sense of compassion high out of reach on a top shelf are signal necessities in that brave new world.

When the girls, who are mostly recruited over the Internet, charmed by the promises made that they will find fulfillment and grand purpose in their new roles with a husband who will cherish them forever, lavishing upon her love, respect and a lifestyle to be proud of -- arrive, they are 'married off' immediately. The estimated 20,000 foreign fighters, among them five thousand Europeans located in Syria, ensure there is no shortage of males anxious to find wives. In that sense, a supreme comfort.

All those numbers, given a steady increase of responses by both males and females, are expected to double by year's end. When they arrive among the jihadists women are no longer permitted the freedom to travel without a male chaperone, or among a group of other women. This information is contained in material published by Islamic State. Should they attempt to do otherwise they risk being lashed or even killed.

Instructions available through ebooks of advice relating to the experience of living under Islamic State reflect a radically circumscribed life. Within that lifestyle is limited access to modern comforts. The lack of basic medicine, limited electricity, and no autonomy whatsoever. "The lives of those teenage girls are very much controlled", Sara Khan, a British Muslim whose group Inspire campaigns against the danger of extremist recruiters, stated.

Odd nomenclature for such a group with their message of awareness and beware-ness, given that al-Qaeda's online magazine for Islamists uses the very same name in its title.

A woman believed to be British female jihadi Aqsa Mahmood, 20, (centre), pictured with friends Photo: Tim Stewart News

Two exceptions to the rule exist; one a Dutch teen who converted to Islam and was renamed Aicha who travelled to Syria to marry a Dutch jihadi fighter and returned months afterward, making her way to the border with Turkey to meet up with her mother who brought her back to the Netherlands where she was immediately arrested on suspicion of joining a terrorist organization. She has not been formally charged and was released from custody.

A second woman reconsidered after the experience of a few weeks in the clutches of the jihadists. A 25-year-old Briton took her toddler son to Raqqa, then decided she had erred, and called home. She travelled back into Turkey where her father met her. It is unknown how she managed to travel the 250 kilometres from Raqqa to the Turkish border city where her father met up with her to return her to Britain.

A 15-year-old French girl hid a Facebook account and Islamic veil from her family, moderate Muslims, managing to join a jihadi network. Once ensconced in a unit of the al-Qaeda offshoot Nusra Front, she became a prisoner. Her brother travelled into Syria to bring her home only to be turned away by the jihadists, while a French youth who had joined the group at approximately the same time was permitted to return home.

"Brides" harder to come by perhaps than eager recruits willing to fight, then deciding it isn't for them, after all.