The post-Cold War world order has seen non-state actors increasing their avenues of influence in international affairs, while the state is gradually seeing its control ebb. Traditional institutions are being questioned from many directions by non-state actors and their weakening role is becoming ever more obvious in this age of rapid information flow.
One important field which has impacted the global narrative in a significant and irreversible manner is the escalating importance and capabilities of violent non-state actors (VNSA) or simply, terrorists. The focus of this article is on the introduction of an entirely new actor, who will be a climacteric factor in the years to come. These actors have been caught in the midst of the tussle between the State and the VNSAs, namely ISIS. They are the brides of ISIS fighters. Since 2012, owing to sophisticated social media propaganda by ISIS, several young women from western countries, or the“muhajirat”, as they are known, were brainwashed into believing the cause and travelled to Syria to marry ISIS fighters. Many ascended to positions of authority, while others recanted and returned to their home countries. However, after the USA proclaimed the defeat of ISIS, many widows were left stranded in Syrian camps. These women expressed a desire to return to their home countries, which denied them their citizenship and blocked their return. Consequently, they found themselves in the moat, in between their adopted state (which no longer exists) and their states of birth. Two prominent examples are Hoda Muthana of Alabama, USA, and Shamima Begum of London, England. In Muthana’s case, the U.S. State Department has denied her right to citizenship on the merit that she willingly left her home country to marry a jihadist. In Begum’s case, the U.K. Home Office is denying her passage to her home country on the premise that she is of Bangladeshi origin, and has the potential of having citizenship of that country – a place she has never been to. This is relevant because it is illegal under international law for states to render their citizens stateless.
The object of this essay here onward is to look at the approach adopted by the State towards these women and how the West has a myopic and patriarchal view of the ISIS brides and their politics, which will invariably compound the problem. Mainly, the aim is to understand how western media and pundits have, through tired and limited reportage and commentary, affected how these women have been treated.
ISIS brides and their Politics
When the US announced the defeat of ISIS in late 2018, many fighters fled, or were arrested, leaving behind their wives and children, who were put up in Kurdish-run camps. The plight of these women have piqued the interest of western media, who have more often than not employed misleading and sensationalist narratives, speaking of them as the ‘new, dangerous ISIS women problem’. This kind of coverage and commentary often ends up being the basis of tangible policies which have disastrous consequences (Shamima Begum ended up losing her baby in the camp). Media rhetoric has reduced these women to lazy clichés as sexual victims of Salafist monsters, but radicalised enough to be a threat. It’s a paradoxical dichotomy, which characterises their misrepresentation. This results in the depoliticization of the women. Ever since ISIS was conceived, women have played important roles like that of the police in the all-women Khansaa brigade, counter-insurgents in the Umm Al-Rayan brigade and as propagandists and recruiters. Distorted and limited illustrations of these women as slaves to their husbands reduces their potency and marginalises them as naïve and brainwashed. Gendered representation will invariably lead to gendered policy-making. If states draft policies for subjects without really understanding them, there is bound to be a divide.
Legal Hurdles
One reason why these new actors are going to cause a paradigm shift in the way international relations is discussed is because of the complicated legalities involved. There have been calls for European countries to repatriate the ISIS women and then prosecute them, but there are innumerable hurdles to this process. Firstly, difficulty to collect evidence proves a roadblock to fair prosecution despite refugee accounts. Second, many European countries prohibit pre-trial detention exceeding 2-14 days. With unsatisfactory evidence, these women would have to be let go, while still posing a threat. Third, due to logistical problems, European countries outsource the trial to other, geographically contiguous countries. But since European law prohibits extradition of suspects to stand trial in countries where they may face the death penalty, this becomes a contentious arena. Shamima Begum’s citizenship was revoked by British Home Secretary Sajid Javid on the grounds that she could be eligible for a Bangladeshi passport, the country of her mother, and hence not be rendered stateless. However, even though Bangladesh denied this claim, had she entered the country, she could have faced the death penalty, which again contradicts European law.
Stripping the ISIS brides of their citizenship creates more questions than answers because the children they birthed under ISIS rule are then automatically rendered stateless. Leaving them behind in war-zones and refugee camps is inhuman and against the very essence of international humanitarian law. States face a challenging dilemma, and seeing the current situation, they do not seem to have answers to it.
Conclusion
Western countries must understand why these women decided to join the ISIS ranks. Stripping them of agency and depoliticizing them only serves to reinforce the disjointed socio-political society they made them despondent. Post-conflict policy that blindsides women’s politics will only serve to reinforce cycles of violence. The reason why this essay focused specifically on the women of ISIS and not the men, is because men are often readily afforded the recognition as important actors and influence the hyper-masculine war dialogue, whereas the women are left out of the discussion. When men transgress, judicial systems are equipped to deal with their vagaries because violence has essentially become a male theme. On the other hand, there is a fair deal of ambiguity when it comes to women being violent. Repatriating them and prosecuting them with a fair trial (which has a good chance of acquittal) would cause internal discontent and disrupt political continuum, but states have a duty to uphold basic humanitarian law. Denying them citizenship also sets a dangerous precedent – that of States resorting to rid themselves of personae non gratae by deporting them to countries where they have never set foot into, furthering the cycle of security risks. This perpetrates a buck-passing norm in international relations and undermines efforts to detect, understand and prevent such problems. No easy solutions exist.
