Concerns grow over women jihadists in Yemen

Rights activists tell Al-Mashareq it is important to raise awareness about al-Qaeda's attempts to recruit women and the dangers this poses to Yemeni society.

Recent events point to the need for government agencies to conduct awareness campaigns in partnership with civil society organisations to alert women to extremist recruitment efforts, they said.

Women al-Qaeda fighters drew attention last month when a number of them were killed during a US Special Forces operation targeting al-Qaeda in the Yakla area of al-Bayda province .

"There were a lot of female combatants that were a part of this," Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said, adding that some were killed in action.

The women were seen running to fighting positions during the raid, which aimed to seize intelligence information to prevent future terrorist attacks, he said.

Preying on women

"The recruitment of women by terrorist groups, and al-Qaeda in particular, is a disaster because of the many perils it poses for the women themselves, their families and society in general," said Lamia al-Eryani, secretary-general of Yemen's Higher Council for Motherhood and Childhood.

"The recruitment of women is a new thing we hear of these days," she told Al-Mashareq, describing this as "a serious matter".

Government agencies and civil society organisations concerned with women's issues have a shared responsibility to conduct awareness-raising campaigns for women that highlight the dangers of al-Qaeda recruitment efforts, she said.

These campaigns may succeed in curtailing this trend before it gains traction and grows into something more dangerous, she added.

Yemeni women are in danger of being preyed on by groups such as al-Qaeda as the illiteracy rate among women in Yemen is 80%, and the other 20% include women who are poorly educated and do not have sufficient awareness about what is happening around them, she said.

"This leads them to a lack of understanding about what is in their interest, and this is a disaster," she added.

Falsehoods and manipulation

The women recruited by al-Qaeda were probably led to believe that by taking up arms they were fulfilling a religious duty, al-Eryani said, which is the same technique the group uses to recruit young men.

"Al-Qaeda succeeded in luring and recruiting women through the use of inducements, brainwashing, religion and the selling point that jihad earns them great stature, as happened with many male youth who were influenced by religion and the promise of paradise," she said.

Groups like al-Qaeda "portray themselves as having come to champion sharia, and the women are brainwashed based on that logic", she said.

The Yemeni Women's Union and other groups concerned with women’s affairs "have a shared responsibility to raise awareness about the issue of women's recruitment, the danger it poses and social problems it causes", she said.

The effort to curb the recruitment of women must be undertaken in accordance with a legal and legislative structure that must be formulated now, she added.

The Women's Union is working to boost women's participation in the political, social and cultural realms, union member Lamis al-Arashi told Al-Mashareq.

These efforts are hampered by Yemen's war, however, which adversely affects the lives of both men and women, she said.

Extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) have exploited the war to expand their control in parts of the country.

A serious problem

As conditions deteriorate due to the war , the phenomenon of female recruitment by terrorist groups has grown considerably, said Sanaa University Gender-Development Research and Study Centre researcher Layla Asda.

"This is a serious problem," she told Al-Mashareq.

"What leads these women to join and work with those groups? Perhaps the most important and difficult reason is poverty and destitution, because if it were not for poverty, a woman would not plunge herself into hell," she said.

Another reason is "ignorance", she added, explaining that extremist groups have exploited this lack of knowledge by portraying their deviant ideology "as a way to erase sins and win the hereafter and paradise".

"The seriousness of the threat posed to society by the recruitment of women stems from the importance of their role and great influence in society," she said.

It is necessary to fight this threat by working to raise awareness about the dangers of extremism, she said, and ensuring all children receive a proper religious upbringing so they are not fooled by the deviant ideology of these groups.