Where are the women? Gender sensitivity in deradicalisation strategies for female foreign terrorist fighters in Germany.

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine German deradicalisation practices for IS returnees in terms of their gender sensitivity. While the majority of former foreign terrorist fighters were men, up to one third of those who left Germany for Syria or Iraq were women. Furthermore, only women and their children have been repatriated so far as part of the coordinated repatriation efforts. There is thus a good reason to look at the issue using Germany as an example. The literature on deradicalisation suggests that gender plays an important role in this process and should be included in interventions. Therefore, it is also necessary to look at the adaptation of deradicalisation practices based on the gender of the person using the German example. Through expert interviews, the situation on the ground was investigated. The results of this work show that German interventions are already gender-sensitive to some extent. However, they are not named as such and much work and change are still needed to be able to call the whole method gender sensitive. Based on these findings, policy recommendations were formulated. Possible limitations of the work and further fields of research in the field of gender-sensitive deradicalisation are also mentioned. Keywords: Deradicalisation, Gender, Women, Islamic State, Foreign...