Engaging women in preventing violent extremism and countering violent extremism
While recognizing that women’s responsibility differ across communities and families, certain qualities tend to be highlighted in PVE/CVE which portray women’s role in relation to extremism as exceptional in countering violent extremism. Security decision-makers are presently interested in women as potential De-radicalizes which will place them as rooted security partners. Women are seen in this discourse as assets for fighting extremism because of the role they are perceived to have as mediators within the family and their various communities. They are viewed as people in the society who have the power to change the social techniques that lead individuals into violent extremism. Women within the family are defined as compassionate leaders, platforms for stability, and support, as well as a social authority for children and husbands who may be prone to extremism.
Therefore, this presents an entry point to their home, through their role as mothers, wives, and sisters, enabling PVE/CVE to reach individuals and groups that are often not easy to access and influence them away from extremism.
These aims are commendable because of the empowering effects that mothers have to be able to recognize early warning signs of radicalization, especially when they have been trained. Mothers are said to have gained a lot of confidence, and have become very strong-minded about moving beyond the family area to the larger community.
However, there are drawbacks for women, as well as the success of PVE/CVE itself, in the policy approach underpinning such. It has a narrow, instrumentalist focus on women as mothers and wives in the privacy of their homes, and shifts dependability around extremism from states to civil society and in particular to mothers, who are assigned the responsibility for the potential radicalization of their children. PVE/CVE activities potentially place women at risk of exclusion or threats within their own communities. A potential shift of responsibility and blame from the state to mothers can occur if their children or husbands are recruited by violent extremist groups.
Thus, this has focused on women as mothers, wives and activists with difficult and demanding roles in different public and private spheres of life who work tirelessly to counter and prevent violent extremism in their homes and their various communities.
