They can never go home.
Misinformation and propaganda are the fuel of the jihadist extremist militant group, ISIS. They create fear and headlines, hate and despair. They make roaring, brave lions out of stray, skinny cats. And they make young women, even teenagers, leave their homes, their families and countries and fight for a cause they’ve only experienced through Snapchat, Facebook posts and Twitter words.
An estimated 4,500 Westerners have left their countries to fight for the Islamic State and according to The Washington Post, there are an “unprecedented number of radicalized women sneaking across borders”. The average age for female converts is 21.
Watch the news clip below from when teenager Samra Kesinovic first left Austria to join ISIS. Post continues after video.
“They often appear to be typical teenagers,” Brigitte Lebans Nacos, a political science professor at Columbia University told the Washington Post. “They ask about hair dryers. They’re looking for romance. They’re fans of ISIS, like others are fans of pop stars.”
The Guardian reports that In Britain alone, out of the roughly 700 people who have travelled to Syria to fight for ISIS, 100 are women or girls and even though these recruits became radicalised for different reasons, all tend to centre around issues of identity (who am I in a Western culture as a Muslim?); faith (these are smart women or girls who are ideological and service to God beats everyone else); curiosity (social media has seen them strike up relationships online); and freedom (they feel they have less freedom in their home country than they would in Syria).
Top Comments
An excellent start!...... These girls/women were not made to go, they chose to go!, they were all aware of what IS was doing to women, men, children and that being gay got you thrown off a building and then stoned to death if you were unlucky enough to survive the fall, it was impossible not to know what IS was doing, the coverage was everywhere, on the TV, in the papers and online, yet they still chose to go, hell that's part of the reason why they chose to go!, they are not victims they are/were combatants or direct supporters of combatants and that is how they should be remembered!.
exactly
Stupid terrorists. Just shows people that terrorists aren't just Arab men but can be pretty young Bosnian girls.