Rogozhina Natalia

Women's Jihad in Southeast Asia

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2023, №1(58), 23-30

 
Annotation: The article analyzes such a new phenomenon in the terrorist movement of Southeast Asian countries as women's jihad, which increases the degree of terrorist threat in the region. The evolution of the role of women in international terrorism is traced in the context of the changes taking place in it from passive participation in terrorist activities to the organizer of terrorist attacks. When the organizational basis of the terrorist movement in the region was formed by groups associated with Jemaah Islamiyah (banned on the territory of the Russian Federation organization), the role of women in this structure was strictly regulated by the performance of auxiliary functions related to private life. There was a strict ban on their participation in violent activities. The situation has changed with the emergence of ISIS (banned on the territory of the Russian Federation organization) and its activities in cyberspace, which has influenced the spread of the process of radicalization of women and the activation of their direct participation in terrorism by financial support for the terrorist movement, the promotion of ideology of Islamic extremism, organization of terrorist attacks. There has been a funda-mental shift in the perception of women as active subjects of the inter-national terrorist movement. They began to get involved in jihad as an independent force. This was facilitated by both the change in the attitude of ISIS to the role of women in jihad, and the willingness of women themselves to play a steering role in the terrorist movement. All this complicates the work of counter-terrorism structures, which previously perceived women as victims rather than active subjects of the terrorist movement.

Keywords: women's jihad, Southeast Asia, terrorism, ISIS