WOMEN'S ROLE IN DE-RADICALIZATION AND REHABILITATION IN THE MENA REGION

The Hub organized a study day to discuss best practices regarding women's roles in de-radicalization & rehabilitation in the MENA region.

There has been an increasing awareness of the importance of roles that women play in de-radicalization and rehabilitation programmes both within the public and private spheres. The study day investigated such roles, including the role of women in programmes for returnees, especially women who have participated or supported terrorist violence.

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Key Insights

The Study Day, held virtually on June 15-16, 2021, gathered a group of experts, academics, and practitioners working on and with women in de-radicalization and rehabilitation programmes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

•  Poverty and violence against women were presented as key driving factors toward women's radicalization.
• Although it is too early to determine "best practices" due to a lack of systematic evaluations, all participants agreed that any programmes to be successful need to be tailored as close as possible to the end-users and need to be based on
• culturally-appropriate frameworks that are embedded in local social, political and
• economic realities. Funding needs to be targeted to tailored projects through
• coordination between public and private sectors.
• There was debate on whether women should be primarily understood as victim or rather also as agents of radicalization and de-radicalization. In processes of rehabilitation and reintegration, women already play an important role in classrooms, mosques, and in the media. The presence of women should be expanded to other areas including prisons.
• Participants highlighted the need for an expansion of women's presence in the security sector, to challenge patriarchal models and to recognize women's role as protectors of the population.
• The Study Day revealed a clear request by local practitioners to provide the support to develop a methodology to strengthen the role of women in deradicalization and rehabilitation processes and training programmes – within and beyond the security sector – in this methodology.
• The HUB was presented as a particularly apt partner for programmes in this area to support networking, research, and concrete civil society initiatives.
• De-radicalization was recognized as an opportunity to address underlying structural issues that hurt both men and women .
• Processes of de-radicalization are constantly evolving, and programmes and practices need to evolve as well.  standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

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