Peer pressure, identity crises drew young women to jihad
Study finds up to 7 females from Quebec believed to have left for Syria, Iraq since 2013
MONTREAL— What draws young Muslim women to an extremist strain of Islam and a life dodging bombs and bullets in Syria or Iraq?
A new report into the realm of female Islamic radicalization in Quebec has found it is a matter of adolescent socialization and the fraught search for an identity as much as a matter of faith.
The study is based on a dozen interviews conducted with those who tried to leave, who thought about leaving, or with family of those who have fled. It tells of teenage girls in Montreal wearing the niqab — a full face covering — to attract male suitors; of the pressure to show religious piety on social media; and of a “virtual sorority” of radicalized females around the globe helping to plan a foreign — and illegal — voyage.
Prepared for Quebec’s Conseil du Statut de la Femme by Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization, the report comes after a wave of young Quebecers left or tried to leave the country to join jihadist groups in 2015.
Overall, the report said, between three and seven females from Quebec are believed to have left the country for Syria or Iraq since 2013. Nationally, the researchers estimated that 10 females have gone abroad. Of the young women interviewed, all performed well in school and were raised in comfortable, middle-class households. But many complained of feeling caught between the demands and expectations of their immigrant families and those of francophone Quebec society.
“Some of them forged an ‘identity shell’ that resulted in an eventual rupture with the outside world, including their family, their friends and the rest of society,” the report said.
Interventions and criticisms of this identity only pushed them further along their path. One young woman recounted her mother scolding her for wearing “terrorist clothing.” Another spoke of the argument that ensued when her mother learned of her secret conversion to Islam.
“Each incident or confrontation at the family level reinforces their feeling of being on the right path and having chosen “the good group” over their parents, adults and a society that seems to want to reject them,” the report said.
The relationships between members of the group were nurtured at one place in particular, described as “a religious and community centre” where young males and females formed friendships and relationships over their shared religious and world views.
“Described by many as a ‘big family,’ this place accentuated the process among some of adopting a new identity, of the attraction of certain proposals by jihadist groups in Syria and the gradual emergence of the idea of hijra (emigrating to an Islamic land).”
The report describes the role played by “charismatic figures” at this centre, who have “implicitly authorized” the growing interest in leaving for Islamic lands.
“Even though such figures don’t call directly for the young people to leave Quebec to go to Syria and join jihadist groups, they seem nonetheless to have contributed to the legitimization of hijra,” the report said.
Among females convinced that life in Syria or Iraq would be better than in Canada, there were still reservations, based on reports of temporary marriages intended to fulfil the sexual needs of fighters. “They seemed to be preoccupied by certain real risks, like being forced into a marriage if they didn’t arrive as a couple in the territory occupied by jihadist groups in Syria, or even suffering sexual assault if they were not accompanied by a man,” the report said.
Several participants spoke about drawing on the advice of other young women who had already travelled to Syria or Iraq and were offering their experiences via social media. The report said this advice — about travel, about what to expect once there — acted like a “virtual sorority.”
“Paradoxically, the perception that they were receiving an honest account that didn’t try to minimize the brutal reality of the conflict helped convince the young Quebec women a little bit more of the necessity of going to Syria,” the report said. The young women did seem content with the idea of restricted or traditional roles for the sexes that would be enforced once abroad.
“In the near majority of cases, they did not want to fight like the boys of the group wanted to do, but to start a family,” the report said. “In a mix of realism (the poverty) and idealism (the ability to live normally) the young women ultimately wanted to adhere to a very traditional vision of gender roles that they did not think they would be able to fulfil in Quebec without being judged.”