Female Radicalisation and ISIS: What are the Implications for UK Domestic Security?

Abstract

It has long been the assumption that radicalisation and subsequent violent activity emanating from a terrorist group was predominantly from the male protagonists. Indeed, societal opinion and cultural bias asserts women involved in such activity have either been coaxed or hoodwinked by male predators, or that they are mentally or physically unwell and thus unable to make intellectual informed decisions; equally their involvement is peripheral. In 2015, three London school girls left the UK to join ISIS. Headlines then portrayed three innocent girls, lured, groomed and/or brain washed by an insidious organisation. The paper will focus on the increase of UK females radicalised by ISIS, who subsequently voluntarily travel to the Islamic State, examining the factors which made these women become more susceptible. It will offer that ‘some’ women, who are radicalised can pose a threat to domestic security, needing greater attention from the UK Government, Security Services and Partners Across Government to understand the impact gender has on security to ensure preventative strategies and policies are considered through a gendered lens.