How important is women’s involvement in maintaining peace and how can it prevent violentextremism? Before answering this question, let us first digest the fact that when talking aboutcounter-terrorism, the common method used is counter-terrorism, which is still very masculine. As stated by Taufik Andrie, Executive Director of Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian (YPP) in the Women and PVE conference “Empowering Women Securing Peace” on December 12, 2024, that women’s involvement in acts of terrorism has changed significantly since 2018. Women who previously only played a supporting role have now become the main actors in acts of terrorism. They are no longer just behind the scenes as a support system, but become the main actors, perpetrators as well as recruiters, and even have a deeper understanding of the values of radicalism than men.
The fact that the increasing role of women and their involvement in acts of terrorism has not been massively included in efforts to prevent acts of extremism. Instead, counter-terrorism still uses repressive methods that are still attached to the male world. Ironically, there are many cases of family couples committing suicide terrorism in the name of loyalty. It is clear here that women through the knife of gender analysis have an important contribution in describing how the process of internalizing radicalism is carried out.
The context of the relevance of gender analysis in describing radicalism here is the way of thinking of certain religious believers that will endanger the security of self, family, community and state. In the patriarchal construction, women have been attached to domestic work. They are not given the opportunity to be in the public sphere. They are not allowed to be at the discussion forum, so their full understanding and awareness as human beings is very limited. Such a situation makes women vulnerable to discrimination and oppression. They are not allowed to have their own desires and must always obey men, in this case the husband. When husbands decide to commit acts of terrorism, they also force their children and wives to participate. Personal social relations within the family, namely between wives and husbands, depart from the prevailing subordinate culture where the belief is that the husband is the leader of the family. This series of facts underlies the importance of gender equality to be involved in various policies related to the prevention of acts of extremism. Involving women in various interests in the public sphere is also important as a strengthening aspect. An understanding of gender equality and gender empowerment is also important, especially among women themselves.
The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) framework has mentioned the need to emphasize understanding the importance of women’s full participation in conflict prevention and extremism, which does not stop at simply increasing the number of women in decision-making
processes, but also relates to recognizing and utilizing the unique perspectives they can bring to the public discussion. How to provide access for women to get involved?
By considering the important pillars that have been mentioned in the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) framework. First, namely Women’s experiences and knowledge as a baseline to increase more gender sentive policies and interventions, Promoting Women’s leadership, Ensuring women’s representation in any decision making process, recognizing women’s agency, Strengthening women’s organizations and movements. Collective action is an important key in preventing acts of terrorism by considering their presence in the family, community and society as a whole.
