Building on ongoing conversations and events of the past year, this high-level workshop will examine responses to the return, rehabilitation and reintegration of perpetrators and supporters of violent extremism from a gendered perspective.
This workshop is part of a broader research initiative the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are conducting on the rehabilitation and reintegration of women who have joined violent extremist movements.
Workshop participants will include key policymakers, researchers, practitioners, psychologists, journalist, victims, and former extremists to facilitate a comprehensive discussion exploring the role of the state, civil society, and other important sectors such as the media, education, and economic development.
The workshop will highlight the experience and innovations of women civil society actors in addressing the gendered dynamics and impacts of violent extremism and terrorism—from security profiling to sexual and gender based violence (SGBV)— and will focus specifically on practical recommendations for dealing with female perpetrators and “returnees”.
A gendered approach reveals nuances of category that complicate practical solutions, such as women abducted and forced to join extremist groups, blurring the lines between victim and perpetrator. For the purposes of this study female returnees are to include those disengaging from extremist groups they had joined both voluntarily and involuntarily, within and outside of their home countries, and across both developed and developing contexts.
Through this study ICAN and UNDP aim to strength the knowledge base on the fate of female returnees and inform a new generation of policy and programming interventions at the local, regional and global levels with this study.
This 2-day workshop will convene a wide range of state, multilateral, academic and civil society stakeholders actively engaged in this area of work to share past and current case examples and exchange key findings and recommendations based on their experience and knowledge. The workshop will serve to validate a preliminary desk review of current policies and programming for dealing with female returnees, review the scope and methodology for the documentation of existing case studies, and provide initial findings and recommendations. Acknowledging the complex and multidimensional nature of the topic, the workshop will consider the following components of rehabilitation and reintegration: legal, security, justice, economic/private sector, communities, families, psychological/emotional, religious/ideological, education, media, and public awareness.
Practitioners, researchers, and policymakers from among the following countries will be invited: Albania, Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cameroon, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States..
Stakeholders from relevant international agencies and organizations will be invited to participate, including the Carter Center, Commonwealth of Nations, European Union, ICCT, International Alert, IOM, IRC, Global Center on Cooperative Security, Mercy Corps, Prevention Project, RUSI, Search for Common Ground, UNFPA, UN CTED and Office of Counter-Terrorism, UN Women, UNIDIR, UN Inter-agency Working Group on Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration, and the World Bank
This workshop is for invited participants only.
