What drives young Syrians into ISIS?

Young Syrian refugees in Lebanon/Russell Watkins DFID

More than ideologies, it is poverty, desperation and desire for revenge that drive young Syrians into extremist groups.

A new study by the peacebuilding NGO International Alert shows that the key factors that push young Syrians into joining extremist groups are the need to earn a basic living, regain a sense of purpose and dignity, and the belief in a moral duty to protect, avenge and defend their people.

The study, titled Why young Syrians choose to fight: Vulnerability to recruitment by violent extremist groups, draws on interviews with 311 young Syrians, their families and community members in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, to understand what drives both vulnerability and resilience to recruitment by the groups ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria).

Adolescent boys and young men between the ages of 12 and 24 were found to be most at risk, along with children and young adults not in education, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees without supportive family structures and networks.

The findings suggest that radicalisation is not an explanation for joining a violent extremist group per se. For many young Syrians, belief in extreme ideologies appears to be, at most, a secondary factor in the initial decision to join an extremist group. 

Instead, vulnerability is driven by a combination of extreme trauma, loss and displacement, lack of alternative ways to make a decent living, the collapse of social structures and institutions including education, and the desire to get revenge against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. According to respondents, armed groups also provide a strong sense of purpose, honour and self-worth.

As one young Syrian man in Lebanon said: “People can find a new meaning to their life in extremism. Extremism opens a door to a new life where they are wanted.”

In Syria more than 6,000 schools are out of use, having been attacked, occupied by the military or turned into an emergency shelter. The collapse of the education system, with some two million children out of school, has also greatly contributed to young people’s vulnerability to joining violent extremist groups, who are filling this gap by providing their own forms of education, the report says. These ‘schools’ are highly segregated, exploit sectarian divisions and support divisive narratives.

UNICEF, which today unveiled details of a major new fund (Education Cannot Wait) to help get children back in class during emergencies, also stresses the crucial role of education in countries affected by wars and disasters.  

"Education changes lives in emergencies," said Josephine Bourne, UNICEF's education chief, in a statement. "Going to school keeps children safe from abuses like trafficking and recruitment into armed groups."

Yet, only 2 percent of global humanitarian appeals are on average dedicated to education.  "It is time education is prioritised by the international community as an essential part of basic humanitarian response, alongside water, food and shelter," Bourne added.

Offering comprehensive, inclusive and quality education, which also incorporates trauma healing and psychosocial support, was one of the four key factors identified by the report that can prevent recruitment.  The others were: providing alternative sources of livelihood, better access to positive social groups and institutions, and avenues for exercising non-violent activism.

The report stresses the need to integrate these social cohesion efforts into humanitarian aid projects, regional policy objectives and diplomacy aiming to reduce discrimination against refugees, which can also drive recruitment.

Note: The study was conducted five years into the conflict in Syria, which has claimed an estimated 300,000 lives, displaced 6.5 million people internally and prompted 4.8 million people to flee to neighbouring countries. 

You can find out more about International Alert's work in Syria here.

 

Turning pain to power – Women of DRC

When we hear/read about the Congo (DRC), it is usually terrible stories, particularly those involving women. My own blog entries are no different. But recently there is a sense that things are shifting a bit – women are taking things into their own hands and among all the pain and devastation, there are shoots of hope.

• There is City of Joy in Bukavu, a place conceived and created by women to provide women survivors of sexual violence “a place to heal emotionally as they rebuild their lives, turn their pain to power, and return back into their communities to lead.” City of Joy will provide group therapy, self-defense, theatre, HIV/AIDS and family planning, horticulture and economic empowerment to up to 180 women a year. It is a project of V-Day and UNICEF, in partnership with Panzi Foundation. To find out more, watch this short, powerful video.

• Another source of hope is the Heal My People programme at HEAL Africa, a Congolese relief organization centered in Goma. The programme was launched by Jeanne Muliri Kabekaty, known as “Mama Muliri” to her friends and colleagues, and its aim is to turn women from victims into survivors and eventually into strong women of the community and the hope of the future of Congo.

In this interview below, Mama Muliri explains what this means. (The interview was translated by HEAL’s Executive Director Judy Anderson and posted on the PeaceXPeace network. (To listen to the whole interview, click here.)

“Let me tell you about the work we are doing with women who had real pain, real sorrow. You know the stories of what had happened to women but what we were really concerned about is that they not live with the stories of their past as victims of sexual violence.

When we first started they were victims but then we said they’re no longer victims because these women that we have been working with have been cared for medically, their emotional state has improved. We started thinking: what other words can we use? We started calling them survivors. We thought: survivors, well yeah they are survivors but how long are they going to be survivors? How many years can they live as survivors? Where does that leave them? We need to give them a way to show how strong they can be and we want them to think of themselves as strong within the community. We want to also change the name.

How will that name change? They need to be strong enough to do hard work. It also has to be work that they can do well and that they can see the value of and the worth of. We work with women and then when they return home we put them with the other women in the communities so that they are all strong together. The women that come back have strength that is accepted and valued in the community and they can work together for their own futures. They can do handiwork, they can work in the gardens, they can sell small items in markets. They find a way to see themselves again as a woman, like the other women in the community.

These women also learn how to accept each other and welcome each other. The women that had a terrible experience during the war are no longer pointed out with the finger, “See that one.” The women that we have worked with, that we have helped heal are now with their other women in community. They are working together.

So we have buried the word victim. We have buried the word survivor. Now these women are called the strong women of the community. They are the hope for the future of Congo. These women have buried their pasts and they are going into the future. What we see is that if in the next two or three years we have no more wars Congo will have a whole different look. And that is why we women are standing together to say: NO MORE WAR. If somebody comes to us proposing another war for another reason we will stand together and say: No More. Enough is enough."

The Bleeding Wound of Nepal: sex trafficking

This is a story I am researching and hope to be able to cover on location:

Draped along the spine of the Himalayas, Nepal is a land of sublime scenery and deep, rich culture. It is also a country from where some 10,000 girls disappear each year. Most never come back.

The majority of them, aged 14 to 16, are trafficked to India, where they are sold into slavery or debt bondage to brothels in Mumbai and Kolkata .These tsukris, as these young slave prostitutes are called, are totally confined within the brothel for an average of two years, after which they are allowed out only with guardians. They end their period of bondage at 18 to 22 years old when they have “repaid their debt.” During that time, the brothel owner has made a profit four to 20 times the price paid for the trafficked girl.

When they are finally freed, the tsukris are no longer girls, but older, shop-worn women with “less market value” - often mentally and physically scarred, ill or HIV positive. Unable to return home to Nepal because of the stigma of prostitution, most remain in India. There, illegal, isolated and with no other means of surviving, nearly all return to sex work, this time as independents. The most entrepreneurial of them become brothel owners, buying their own tsukris - and so the system perpetuates itself. A few, however, have managed to go back to Nepal, where they patrol the border, trying to prevent other girls from being trafficked.

Although slavery was long ago legally abolished in the State of Nepal, and despite national and international efforts to prevent trafficking, the number of girls trafficked from Nepal has significantly increased over the last decade. A Nepali newspaper called it: “The Bleeding Wound of Nepal.” UNICEF estimates that 300,000 Nepalese women and girls have been sold into forced prostitution mostly to India, but also within Nepal and to Gulf countries, and their numbers are swollen every year by new arrivals.

Girls are trafficked from all over the country, but mostly from poor rural villages. Rural communities live in extreme poverty and life for women is harsh. (Nepal is one of the rare countries in the world where men outlive women). Women are expected to work harder than men, but are considered an economic hindrance and have no voice. They are also poorer and have limited access to education and health care. Their precarious situation makes them more vulnerable to being lured away with promises of employment, marriage or a better life across the border. Others are simply sold by their families, who may not know the full horror of what awaits them in India. The border between Nepal and India in vast (1,100-miles long) and porous and towns across the border create a natural market for trafficking. Trafficking, of course, is immensely profitable...

A few women are fighting back: Maiti Nepal, a local charity in Danghadi, Kaili, is trying to intercept trafficked girls at the border before they can reach their final destination in Indian brothels. They rely on young women - some are former trafficked persons - patrolling the border at checkpoints, working in conjunction with the police to interrogate suspicious parties. Former trafficked women say they can always spot a trafficked girl, having been there themselves.