[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WOMEN'S ROLE IN COUNTERING TERRORISM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 27, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-111
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
28-824PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
E-mail, [email protected].
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
RON DeSANTIS, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
TED S. YOHO, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
Wisconsin ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
ANN WAGNER, Missouri TED LIEU, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
---------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
TED POE, Texas, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
PAUL COOK, California BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania DINA TITUS, Nevada
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Valerie M. Hudson, Ph.D., professor and George H.W. Bush Chair,
The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M
University..................................................... 6
Mr. Haras Rafiq, chief executive officer, Quilliam International. 11
Ms. Farhat Popal, manager, Women's Initiative, George W. Bush
Institute...................................................... 27
Ms. Jamille Bigio, senior fellow for women and foreign policy,
Council on Foreign Relations................................... 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Valerie M. Hudson, Ph.D.: Prepared statement..................... 8
Mr. Haras Rafiq: Prepared statement.............................. 13
Ms. Farhat Popal: Prepared statement............................. 30
Ms. Jamille Bigio: Prepared statement............................ 36
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 58
Hearing minutes.................................................. 59
WOMEN'S ROLE IN COUNTERING TERRORISM
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit
statements and questions, extraneous materials for the record
subject to the length limitation in the rules. I recognize
myself for an opening statement.
The spread of terrorism and extremist ideas has claimed
countless lives, destroyed hundreds of communities and spawned
radical groups around the world. Women in particular have long
been the victims of these radical ideas.
Just last week, the terrorist group Boko Haram targeted a
girls' school in Nigeria and abducted more than 100 young
girls. This incident follows the 2014 abduction of 270 Nigerian
school girls of which 112 are still missing.
These acts are far from uncommon among Islamic terrorist
organizations. Across the world, jihadist networks subject
women and young girls to horrendous human rights violations.
These male-dominated extremist groups frequently deny basic
rights like access to education or political representation to
women as a core component of their ideas.
Terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are often the
worst abusers of women, forcing them into marriages and sexual
slavery. It should be no surprise that the status of women in a
society is often an important indicator as to how vulnerable it
is to violence and radicalization.
Yet, while being one of the primary targets of terrorist
groups, women are also being radicalized and recruited into
these groups. Some support the group's operations, enforce its
laws, or marry, and bear children of terrorist fighters. Others
actually commit these acts of terror.
In recent years as many as 3,000 women have traveled to the
Middle East to join ISIS with many becoming female suicide
bombers.
Despite the marginalization and brutality of women in
extremist-held lands, repressive regimes, persistent conflict,
and poor development policies sometimes create conditions that
make groups like ISIS to be seen as an opportunity for women.
Once radicalized, terrorist organizations will leverage the
status of women to further their violent goals. For example,
Boko Haram has exploited cultural perceptions of women in
Nigeria as nonviolent and unlikely to be involved in terrorism,
to use them as intelligence and recruiting tools.
In our effort to combat terrorism and extremism abroad, we
have neglected the important role of women and how they can
play a part in actually preventing radicalization and
facilitating peace building in areas long worn by violence.
Women are well placed in homes, schools, and communities to
challenge extremist narratives. Research shows that
antiterrorism messages can be more effectively spread by women
because they are more directly involved with those most
vulnerable to the terrorist recruitment of the world's youth.
Given their importance in families and communities, it's
essential that women both at home and abroad are more
meaningfully enlisted in the fight against terrorism.
Two years ago, as French police hunted for the mastermind
behind the Paris attacks that killed 130, it was a woman who
reported the whereabouts to the police.
Her role as a surrogate mother to family members of the
attacker allowed her access and trust that men unfamiliar to
the family would have never gained.
Her brave action prevented a planned follow-on attack.
Examples such as this demonstrate the crucial role of women in
spotting emerging violence and gaining trust within families
and communities.
Unfortunately, we often lack their perspectives because
women are underrepresented in governments where terrorist
groups are most active.
Because of their better ability to build trust, women have
proven to improve the outcomes of conflict mediation and peace
building.
A study of 40 peace processes in 35 countries over the past
30 years found that when women were involved, more agreements
were reached, implemented, and sustained.
As more and more terrorist groups threaten our country, our
allies, and our interests, it is vital that we leverage the
talents and perspectives of women as part of a bigger approach
to ensure security at home and abroad.
It must be the policy of the United States that as we work
in societies damaged by years of war and political unrest we
empower women to have a larger voice.
In this fight against terrorism, we need everybody at the
table, especially women. And I will yield to the gentleman from
Massachusetts, the ranking member, Mr. Keating, for his opening
statements.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Chairman Poe. I would like to thank
our panel for joining us on this very important topic.
Quite frankly, in 2001 no one imagined how much the threat
of terrorism would, indeed, change. The days of countering
terrorism through undermining and eliminating self-contained
organizations is over.
Despite many successes, we often feel like we are playing a
rigged game of Whac-A-Mole and all the while the organized
groups like al-Qaeda or Boko Haram continue to survive and
evolve as ever present and legitimate threats to the United
States and our allies.
Our security agencies here in the United States and those
of our allies have been working tirelessly to adapt to a
changing landscape, and as we have come to understand the new
terrorist threats we face in foreign fighters and lone wolves,
and the often unpredictable radicalization of vulnerable
individuals in our communities, fortunately we have the ability
to learn more about these new approaches and new actors who are
critical to the fight against terrorism, and actors who really
should have been a part of the strategy all along.
Civil society, the rule of law, and the focus of our
hearing this afternoon--women--are integral to our success in
countering the terrorist threats we face today.
By consistently failing to meaningfully engage women in
combating terrorism and extremism, we are failing to not only
address part of the problem but we are failing to pursue a
whole new range of solutions.
Our mission is to be most effective and efficient in
keeping Americans and our allies safe from terrorism and to
have this exclusion continue or not to maximize this important
resource is unacceptable.
Roughly half the world is made up of women. Half the
victims of terrorism are women. In communities struggling to
rebuild and achieve security and stability again after a
terrorist threat has finally been temporarily kept at bay,
roughly half the people in that community will be women.
And yet, when we look at the breakdown of who is empowered
to have a meaningful role in combating terrorism, women are
severely under-represented. At a time when resources are tight,
when we can't seem to have a single sustained success story of
eliminating a terrorist threat anywhere, and when instead the
problem might be growing, why are we tying one of our hands
behind our back?
When we think about radicalization and terrorism, there are
always warning signs. A parent notices her child's behavior,
notices whether there has been a recent change in that
behavior.
A teacher notices one of her students has been increasingly
withdrawn in class. They change their appearance or their
opinions have started to become more extreme.
Often, women are on the front lines of noticing these
warnings signs associated with radicalization. What resources
do they have when they are faced with a situation?
Far too often, women don't know or trust who they can go to
with that information or, worse yet, when some of them brought
their concerns to law enforcement, they are ignored.
Fortunately, this has been changing, thanks to the
incredible strength and determination of countless women around
the world as well as many men who early on understood the
importance of supporting these women in their mission.
Thanks to them, we finally started to move in the right
direction. Congress passed the Women, Peace, and Security Act
last fall, which will require a strategy be in place to promote
the participation of women in U.S. foreign policy.
More research has been done to show the benefits achieved
when women have a seat at the table and more women than ever
before have been able to join the ranks of their male
counterparts in the security sector and in leadership posts
where they have a real role in fighting terrorism and shaping
peaceful resolutions to conflict.
We still have a very long way to go, however, and the
threats we face from terrorism are not going to sit patient
while we get there.
The whole of government approach does not mean listening to
and working with just half the resources we have available to
us in tackling these threats.
I, therefore, look forward to hearing our witnesses today.
I hope that we can discuss lessons learned so far, the gaps
that still remain, and including women alongside men in efforts
to combat terrorism, and what we can do about it, what we
should be doing in terms of our foreign assistance, our
military assistance, our diplomatic missions, and our
intelligence missions.
What must men start doing differently and what changes do
we need to start making things happen now so that our
counterterrorism strategy is no longer just half of what it
could be?
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.
And without objection, the chair will recognize the gentle
lady from Florida, Ms. Frankel, for an opening statement.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Poe and Mr. Keating, for
convening this meeting.
For too long, women's diverse roles in countering and
supporting violent extremism has been overlooked and it just
needs more attention. I am glad we are doing that today and I
thank you, all of you, for being here.
Ignoring half of the population in the fight against
radicalism leaves us with a strategic blind spot and when it
comes to violent extremism women can be victims, preventers,
and perpetrators.
You know, terrorists do not succumb their victims only with
bullets and bombs, as we know. Rape, trafficking, and abuse of
women have become all too common weapons of war.
Women are often the first targets of terrorist
organizations. ISIS has abducted and raped thousands of women
and girls and even used income generated from human trafficking
to fill their coffers.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of girls and
subjected them to countless horrors. Last week, another 110
girls went missing from a group that attacked another school.
The Taliban have attacked girls in Afghanistan, in
Pakistan--like we heard about that wonderful young girl,
Malala--simply for trying to get an education.
And, sadly, women are not always the innocent. They also
support and engage in terrorism. In sub-Saharan Africa, three
out of four child suicide bombers are girls and 18 percent of
all suicide bombers are women, and I am sure there is a lot of
complicated reasons for that that hopefully some of you will
address.
When the former wife of a Boko Haram commander was asked
why she willingly joined the group, she said they offered her
more money, power, and protection than what she was getting
within her own community.
Recent research has shed light on factors that lead women
to be recruited into terrorist organizations: False promises of
protection, escape from an abusive home, and leadership
opportunities.
But we still have a limited understanding of what's driving
these women in the wrong direction. And as mentioned by my
colleagues, women can be and should be on the front lines of
countering terrorism, and are uniquely situated to detect early
signs of radicalization in youth, especially as mothers.
And whatever--many times their warnings are disregarded and
we have to figure out ways to empower them and I hope we will
hear some suggestions on that.
I have lots of questions but I am going to wait until it's
my turn to ask and, again, I thank you all for being here on
this very important subject.
Mr. Poe. The gentle lady yields back her time.
I now will recognize each of the witnesses and I would
advise all of you that your statements are prepared--your
prepared statements are a part of the record and try to keep
your statements to no more than 5 minutes and then each member
of the panel or each member of the committee will ask you
questions.
Dr. Valerie Hudson is professor at the George H. W. Bush
School of Government and also is the chair of the Department of
International Affairs at the Bush School of Government at Texas
A&M University where she directs the program of Women, Peace,
and Security. She previously taught at Brigham Young,
Northwestern, and Rutgers Universities.
Mr. Haras Rafiq is CEO of Quilliam International. He is
currently a member of the United Kingdom's Prime Minister's
Community Engagement Forum Task Force and was formerly a member
of the U.K. government's task force looking at countering
extremism in response to the 2005 terrorist bombings in London.
Ms. Farhat Popal serves as the manager of the Women's
Initiative Fellowship and the Afghan Women's Project at the
George W. Bush Institute at SMU, not to be confused with the
Texas A&M Institution where your cohort, Dr. Hudson, works.
Previously, she worked at the State Department's Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and as special inspector
general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
And Ms. Jamille Bigio is a senior fellow at the Women and
Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Previously, she has served as director of human rights and
gender on the White House National Security Council staff.
Dr. Hudson, we will start with you and you have 5 minutes.
When that red light comes on, that means you're supposed to
stop.
Ms. Hudson. I'll do my best.
Mr. Poe. If you see it.
Ms. Hudson. Thank you so much.
Mr. Poe. In case you were wondering what that meant.
STATEMENT OF VALERIE M. HUDSON, PH.D., PROFESSOR AND GEORGE
H.W. BUSH CHAIR, THE BUSH SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC
SERVICE, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
Ms. Hudson. I am grateful to be here today. Thank you so
much for inviting me. I hope my short remarks on the linkages
between male-female relations, radicalization, and terrorism
may be of use to you.
My research team at the Women's Stats Project has been
examining the relationship between gender and equality,
marriage market obstruction, on the one hand, and the security
and stability of nation states on the other for some time now.
This research is most recently funded by the Minerva
Initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense. In our efforts,
we have concentrated on women's personal empowerment, or
disempowerment, at the household level rather than examining
broader indicators such as female literacy, female labor force
participation, or female parliamentary representation.
Rather, we examine things that are closer to home for women
such as property and inheritance rights, rights in marriage,
rights in divorce and custody, level of violence against women
in the home--in total, 11 such indicators of women's
empowerment or disempowerment at the household level.
Then, using large and multi varied modeling measure
techniques, we found that this disempowerment--household
disempowerment measure is strongly significantly related to
multiple measures of political instability, autocracy, lack of
freedom, corruption, and internal conflict in the state.
In fact, the overall best predictor of state stability and
security was not our control variables such as how urbanized
the society was, how fractionalized the society was, colonial
status, and several others, but rather women's disempowerment
at the household level was the most predictive variable.
Why would there be such a strong and significant
association? We argue that the character of male-female
relations at the household level is, if you will, the first
political order within any human society and this order shapes
the development of the nation state in indelible ways.
If the household is an autocracy where men rule over those
who are different from them--women--if men feel they have the
right to use physical force against those who are different
from them--women--if men feel entitled to greater access to
household resources than those who are different from them--
women--this is the template that will be applied to all who are
deemed different in the larger society.
This explains why Elin Bjarnegard and her co-authors have
found that men holding deeply gender unequal beliefs also hold
far more hostile attitudes toward minority and foreign nations
and are significantly more likely to be involved in committing
political violence.
How women are treated by men becomes, if you will, a boot
camp training men in the arts of violent and exploitative
autocracy.
Does the boot camp hypothesis hold for terrorism as well?
Yes, it does. Again, using the same techniques, we found every
measure of terrorism we examined such as the political
terrorist scale, terrorism impact score, terrorism fatalities
was strongly, significantly associated with women's personal
disempowerment at the household level.
Train men to terrorize women and you train them in
terrorism. Relatedly, this also helps explain why the
overwhelming majority of mass shooters in the U.S. have
histories of domestic violence.
We also undertook the second angle of investigation into
the links to terrorism. We examined nations' comparative rates
of production of foreign fighters going to fight for ISIS.
Adjusting for total population size, which nations are
producing more or less of these foreign fighters? Using data
from the Soufan Group on estimated numbers from each country,
again, a strong and significant relationship between the
national production rate of foreign fighters and our measure of
women's personal disempowerment at the household level.
This is the second corroboration of the boot camp
hypothesis and I'd like to note this particular research was
conducted by my graduate Capstone research team at the Bush
School of Government and Public Service for the Office of
Global Women's Issues at the State Department.
There are also additional ways. By creating structural
instabilities--well, you talked about Boko Haram. Well, one of
the structural instabilities is bride price--the price that a
groom must pay to a bride's father to marry.
Bride price is subject to extreme inflation and bubbles
over time, and this means that young men are priced out of the
marriage market.
Boko Haram kidnaps these girls so that young men without
bride prices may marry. In a like manner, polygyny and sex
ratio alteration also create chronic instability within the
system, goading young men into grievance and political
terrorism.
In conclusion then, by providing a training course in
terrorism, creating structural instability within a society,
and disempowering the very voices that might be most persuasive
arguing against terrorism--women--the character of male-female
relations is a strong determinant of the horizon for peace and
security within the society.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hudson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Dr. Hudson.
Mr. Rafiq, thank you for being here. Thank you for coming
across the pond, so to speak, to be here to testify at this
hearing. We appreciate it very much.
You may proceed with your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MR. HARAS RAFIQ, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, QUILLIAM
INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Rafiq. Thank you, Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating,
and Member Frankel for inviting me to travel across the pond
and speak on this very important subject.
My colleague--my executive director at Quilliam U.S. would
have been here but he's in Nigeria right now training male and
female members of civil society on critical thinking to tackle
terrorism.
Quilliam is an organization that operates in three
countries--the U.K., U.S., and Canada--and it's an organization
that was set up by former extremists to challenge Islamist
terrorism and Islamist ideology.
I think it's very important that we use the correct
terminology and we use Islamism and differentiate between
Islam, because just as there's a difference between the word
social and socialism, there is a difference between Islam,
which is a religion that's practiced by Muslims around the
world in many different ways.
Islamism is a distinct political ideology when merged with
certain Salafi Wahhabi theology is one interpretation and is
part of a civil war that's going on within Islam right now.
Chairman Poe, you're absolutely right that women are
ideally placed to be primary and secondary intervention
providers because of their proximity, their prestige, and their
passion.
They are much more effective than any government
initiatives direct or any governments can be and quite often
are more effective than men when it comes to providing these
interventions for young male and female members of their
families.
In order to understand and the best way to actually look at
projects to prevent terrorism--we need to look at the
radicalization process and there are four key aspects to it.
The first one, there has to be a grievance, whether it's
genuine, partial, or perceived. The second one, there has to be
a charismatic recruiter or recruiters that will recruit people
who have these grievances.
The third thing is there has to be an identity crisis.
People have to be told that the only way they're going to find
solutions is if they join a particular Islamist gang, and the
fourth one is the ideology of Islamism itself that actually
provides solutions for some of these people.
In the case of women and our ground-breaking research,
which I co-authored, called ``Caliphates: Women and the Appeal
of Islamic States,'' the four main solutions for women were the
following--the first one, the promise of empowerment; the
second one, the promise of deliverance; the third one, the
promise of participation; and the fourth one, the promise of
piety.
Once we understand these processes, we can start looking at
projects on ways of actually preventing terrorism, and I just
want to touch very briefly on four projects that we've worked
on--or that we've run--and you can read more about them in the
written testimony.
The first one is the current project in Nigeria, which is
around critical thinking, which our--my executive director,
Mohammed Rahim, is delivering right now. It's on critical
thinking.
The second one is AMATE, which is the American Muslims
Against Terrorism and Extremism. We run that with our partners
in the U.S., Masjid Muhammad and also with Greene Street
Communications, and in fact the project is led by an African-
American Muslim woman, Jamilah Fraser.
And since its launch on January the 8th of this year, we've
reached 705,000 people out of which 65,000--sorry, 86,000
people have been women, and I can go into the demographics a
little bit more.
The third one is the rehabilitation of former terrorists
within the U.K. There have been a number of people that have
been released here in the U.S. over the last 12 months and
we've worked with some of them, male and female, and there will
be some news and some announcements that we'll have where we've
de-radicalized, used models that we've used in other countries
to de-radicalize individuals here in the U.S. And by the way,
there are just under 20 further people that we--convicted
terrorists in the U.S. that we release within the next 12
months.
The fourth one is FATE, which is Families Against Terrorism
and Extremism, and that's one of our flagship programs where
we've operated in 22 countries with 115 organizations.
Ten thousand providers of services have been the
beneficiary of training. We've up-scaled--we've trained people
in North Africa and in central Europe as well, and again, we've
helped them build messages and really used women and families
to actually become this bulwark against terrorism.
There are about 12 recommendations in my testimony but the
gist, really, of the recommendations are around the following.
At this moment in time, we are actually playing Whac-A-
Mole. We are actually focusing on a strategy that is about
terrorism prevention, and once we actually contain one global
jihadist terrorist threat, there is a new one that pops up.
But ISIS and al-Qaeda didn't breed extremism. Extremism
bred them. In order to actually become more effective, we have
to recognize that there is a global jihadist insurgency and we
also need an effective counter extremism strategy which
actually works with women, empowers women, and empowers civil
society as a whole to take on this challenge and counter the
narratives that would radicalize our youngsters.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rafiq follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you very much.
Ms. Popal.
STATEMENT OF MS. FARHAT POPAL, MANAGER, WOMEN'S INITIATIVE,
GEORGE W. BUSH INSTITUTE
Ms. Popal. Chairman Poe, Representative Keating, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is an honor to
appear here today.
My name is Farhat Popal. I work on the Women's Initiative
at the non-profit nonpartisan George W. Bush Institute in
Dallas, Texas. I am also Afghan American, so this issue is of
great importance to me.
At the Bush Institute, we believe women are essential to
the development of peaceful, open, and prosperous societies.
Our Afghan Women's Project has worked to ensure the expansion
of women's rights in Afghanistan and we regularly engage with
remarkable leaders, from civil society advocates, to peace
builders, to first ladies.
We also support Mrs. Laura Bush in her role as honorary co-
chair of the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council. My comments today
will focus on women's role in countering violent extremism in
Afghanistan.
I will also discuss how women's meaningful inclusion in
leadership can help build resilient communities. Here are the
three points I would like to leave with you today.
First, Afghan women drive education, growth, and self-
reliance. They are essential to Afghanistan's stability and we
must continue to support them.
Second, Afghan women help build resilient communities and
participate in peace building at all levels of society. We must
ensure their voices are represented in the peace process.
And third, what happens elsewhere in the world matters here
at home. It is in our national security and moral interest to
support sustainable development in Afghanistan.
Afghan women and girls have made enormous strides in areas
such as education and employment but continue to be impacted by
gender-based violence, limited access to justice, and violent
extremism.
In the 2017 survey of the Afghan people by the Asia
Foundation, 92 percent of Afghans say they fear encountering
the Taliban and 94 percent fear encountering ISIS.
I share this to show both the magnitude of the problem and
the Afghan people's rejection of extremism. All Afghans benefit
from effective CVE efforts but Afghan women gain the most.
They also have the most to lose if their hard-won rights
are negotiated away. At the family and village level, Afghan
women play a key role in mediating conflict, building trust and
dialogue in the community, and counseling family members.
With over 63 percent of the population under the age of 25,
mothers also can have a profound influence on their children
through education.
Today, thanks to the U.S. and Afghan governments and the
international community, more than 9.2 million children are
enrolled in school of which almost 40 percent are girls, and
the percentage of college-age students enrolled in higher
education has risen from 1 percent in 2001 to almost 10 percent
today.
At the national level, 12 out of 63 members of the High
Peace Council are women. This visible presence is important.
But women must also have actual influence and authority.
In the 2017 initiation of the Afghan-led Kabul Process,
only two of 47 representatives were women. This marginalizes
their presence and their voice.
Women have been instrumental members of provincial peace
councils, encouraging local insurgents to participate in talks
and facilitating a release of hostages.
As Chairman Poe mentioned, research shows that women's
meaningful participation in a peace negotiation makes the
resulting agreement 35 percent more likely to last at least 15
years.
CVE is also about more than security. It's about creating
resilient communities that are built upon strong social
connections, trust, and dialogue.
They're also built on inclusion. Afghan women are a key
part of these efforts. Last October, the Bush Institute met 14
women leaders from the Middle East, North Africa, and
Afghanistan who are advancing economic opportunity and,
ultimately, peace and prosperity in their countries.
We met Nadia Behboodi of the American University of
Afghanistan who is working to support women-owned businesses
through training, capital, and access to business and IT
support.
We reconnected with Manizha Wafeq, featured in our book,
``We Are Afghan Women: Voices of Hope,'' who advocates for
women's economic rights through the Afghanistan Women Chamber
of Commerce and Industry.
According to the chamber, women entrepreneurs have invested
more than $66 million in the Afghan economy and created more
than 47,000.
Afghan women have a staunch advocate in First Lady Rula
Ghani. Last fall, Ms. Ghani joined Ms. Bush on Capitol Hill in
their roles as honorary co-chairs of the U.S.-Afghan Women's
Council, a key public-private partnership that was established
in 2002.
They discussed the importance of advanced training and
mentoring and urged us to see Afghan women as the leaders and
partners they are, not as victims.
If I can leave you with one key point, it is this: Women's
meaningful inclusion in all aspects of society--social,
political, and economic--is essential for Afghanistan's
stability and prosperity.
Here is how we can help. First, we must consider local
contexts in causes of violent extremism to inform effective CVE
strategies and women's role in them, and by building local
capacity, communities can sustainably lead their own efforts.
Second, we must continue to support and fund sustainable
development in Afghanistan that is aligned with national level
policies and priorities.
Stability requires equal access to justice, respect for
human rights, effective rule of law and good governance, and
transparent, effective, and accountable institutions. It also
necessitates access to quality education.
These efforts will help undermine extremist narrative and
will take both public and private sector engagement.
Perhaps most importantly, we must continue to invest in
women and guarantee their meaningful inclusion in peace
building.
The bipartisan Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 is an
important step in this direction but it must be implemented and
funded to make a difference.
In sum, Afghan women are making a profound impact on a
daily basis and it is in our interest to support them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Popal follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you very much.
Ms. Bigio.
STATEMENT OF MS. JAMILLE BIGIO, SENIOR FELLOW FOR WOMEN AND
FOREIGN POLICY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Ms. Bigio. Thank you.
Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, and distinguished
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today.
By convening this hearing, Congress is sending a bipartisan
signal that the United States can no longer afford to ignore
how women's participation will improve the effectiveness of
counterterrorism efforts.
As you noted, extremist groups use women to their
advantage, recruiting them on the one hand as facilitators and
martyrs and, on the other hand, benefiting both strategically
and financially from their subjugation.
A counterterrorism policy has not been as effective at
understanding how women can improve security efforts. We see
extremist groups target women and girls. We see some groups use
sexual violence to terrorize populations, displace civilians,
and generate revenue.
Extremist groups also recruit women to act as informants
and facilitators. Close to 20 percent of foreign fighters from
Europe who join the Islamic State are female and women have
proven effective in all roles assigned to them by extremist
groups including as suicide bombers.
When groups use female suicide bombers they are taking
advantage of the relative absence of women in police and
military forces and makes it easier for women to hide suicide
devices, knowing that there is a good chance they will not
encounter a female security official and therefore will not be
searched.
While extremist groups are strategically using women to
their advantage, there is an opportunity for counterterrorism
policy to draw more on the opportunities of how women can
contribute.
Women are already on the front lines of countering violent
extremism, as we witness female police officers engaging with
local communities to prevent violent extremism; female imams,
and other religious leaders preaching religious tolerance and
women countering efforts to radicalize their husbands,
children, and communities.
On the military side, former U.S. Special Operations
Commander Admiral William McRaven observed that including women
opens up possibilities for interactions with local populations
that increases the effectiveness of the overall mission.
Despite these advantages, U.S. Government policy and
programs pay little attention to the role of women. To
strengthen these efforts, the U.S. Government should pursue the
following steps.
First, the forthcoming U.S. national counterterrorism
strategy and the national strategy for countering violent
extremist groups should include attention to and investment in
women's roles, both in terms of how the U.S. Government can
involve women leaders as well as steps to de-radicalize and
reintegrate female fighters.
Efforts to address women's roles should not be detached
from broader security sector policy and initiatives which
result in missed opportunities where women's contributions
could have improved the effectiveness of U.S. operations.
Second, to maximize the return on defense investments, the
U.S. Government should increase resources to facilitate women's
involvement in efforts to counterterrorism and violent
extremism.
Investment by the United States in this area have been
limited to small grants or standalone programs. The Defense
Department, the State Department, and USAID should invest more
in women's roles to counterterrorism and violent extremism.
This includes through prevention-related funds such as ESF
but also security funds such as antiterrorism and law
enforcement programs.
Currently, these do too little to support the role of
female security officials, for example, and with the proposed
cuts to diplomacy and development there's a risk that funding
for women's contributions to security will be decreased, which
will in turn decrease the effectiveness of U.S. security
investments.
Retired General Allen, former commander of the
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan,
observed from his time that by empowering women we can make
them a force to reduce the reality of radicalization, calling
it an investment that pays off in virtually every occasion
where I've had the opportunity to see it.
He advocated increasing funding to help women
counterterrorism including by making Defense Department money
available for State Department-run programs in this area.
Third, the U.S. Government should address the specific
needs and experiences of women. U.S. efforts to reintegrate
returning fighters into communities should address the
motivations and grievances of female fighters, whether in
Columbia, Europe, or elsewhere.
Finally, in light of evidence that terrorists and violent
extremist groups are exploiting the absence of female--of women
in security sectors, U.S. security cooperation efforts should
help countries to increase the recruitment, retention, and
advancement of women in their security sectors.
Such efforts should target women in uniformed roles and in
leadership positions in order to ensure they can shape
engagements with communities and influence policy decisions.
U.S. Government training programs should require that all
countries participating in U.S.-provided security and justice
programs should send delegations of at least 30 percent women
to ensure that women have the opportunity to benefit from our
investments.
Congress and this committee can work to hold the
administration accountable for ensuring that its efforts to
counterterrorism and violent extremism invest in an important
but overlooked strategy--the inclusion of women.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bigio follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you very much. I will now recognize myself
for questions.
I appreciate your very good information about an issue that
has not gotten much attention at all on the fight against
terrorism since 9/11 and really before that, and so I want to
speak on behalf of all--the entire subcommittee that we
appreciate your testimony and also your written testimony as
well. It is fascinating.
Let me ask this question to all four of you. You have given
us a lot of information--good information, valuable
information.
I hope that in the fight against terrorism, if we can use
that word, we refocus on the importance of the role of women in
solving this problem but also in seeing how intricately
entwined women are in the whole process of fighting terrorism--
women as victims, women as enablers, women as problem solvers--
all three.
So be specific in what we can do right now to change this
focus and include the role of women in those areas I mentioned,
primarily in fighting extremism and being enablers of
extremism, if I can use those two concepts.
If you can just be specific--I will start with you, Dr.
Hudson.
Ms. Hudson. Thank you, Chairman Poe. Very nice to address
that very important question.
In my line of work at the Bush School, we look at intel
quite a bit and one of the things that I've argued in previous
publications is that we are not tracking the types of things
that we need to track.
We could have been much more aware of what was going on
with groups such as Boko Haram if we had been tracking things
such as bride price trajectories.
One of the most fascinating pieces of research I saw came
from the West African situation, which has been roiled by civil
war, and they found that the rebel groups were--had so much
more success recruiting in areas where the rate of polygamy had
risen as a result of economic setbacks, pricing young men out
of the market.
There's also, I think, early warning to be seen in things
such as sex ratio alterations. You know, we think of there
being a deficit of girls in China and India.
But do you know there's now 19 nations that have abnormal
birth sex ratios? And they include nations that definitely need
to be on our radar screen--Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova,
Albania, and others.
What I am suggesting is that the means by which women are
subordinated in these types of societies through bride price,
through polygamy, through sex ratio alteration has to be part
of our intelligence gathering--has to be part of our
situational awareness and of our understanding of early warning
indicators.
We've not seen that to date and that is certainly something
that I would work on. And I will yield the floor, but I will
also say that disrupting women's disempowerment at the
household level, focussing on things like property rights,
inheritance rights, focussing on things such as child custody,
divorce, age at marriage, this is where the rubber hits the
road for the empowerment of women.
We have found that it's absolutely possible to disempower
women and yet have a high female literacy rate, a high female
labor force participation rate, high female representation in
Parliament.
Those things don't touch the lives of women at the
household level where their voice will either be heard or
ignored. So disrupting that syndrome is also important.
Mr. Poe. Mr. Rafiq.
Mr. Rafiq. Thank you, Chairman Poe, for your question.
I think it's a very good question and I think that there is
a broader answer and then a more specific answer.
The broader answer is that too often governments at the
U.S. and the U.K.--my home country--we suffer from a lack of
political consistency and the will to see things through.
Even over the last 10 years, there have been a number of
very, very good projects which have established criterias of
success and the metrics have been achieved and then after a
year it has been decided that those projects aren't going to be
carried on or supported anymore.
But to be more specific, you asked for one or two clear
things. I think, first of all, you know, people talk about this
being a problem of Islam and then other people say it's got
nothing to do with Islam.
The reality is it's somewhere in the middle. It has
something to do with certain interpretations of Islam. And one
of the things that we need to do within certainly Western
countries a lot more is help women become at the forefront of
reform.
Theological reform is absolutely critical to solving this
problem and it's reform around gender extremism but also a
reform around what the role of women can be within Muslim
communities.
But too many people, too many families, too many Muslims
that live in either the U.K. or the U.S. are living almost
parallel lives.
There is the rule of law and what's expected and what--of
women generally and what is allowed--what women are allowed to
do generally and then there are women within certainly more
conservative fundamentalist families and households. I think
that reform is absolutely critical. But women need to be at the
forefront of that.
The other thing I think that's very, very important is if
we look at the deliverance, the piety, the empowerment promises
that groups like ISIS have, we have to take that away from them
and we have to encourage Muslim women who are in the U.S. and
around the world to become--take leadership roles in actually--
taking on more mainstream civil society projects because if we
can do that, that'll take away the lure from groups like al-
Qaeda and ISIS, and I think that this is something that can be
done both in the offline world and in the online world.
You know, people talk about the internet radicalizing
people. Well, nobody goes online to buy a pair of shoes or a
handbag and somebody ends up becoming a jihadist or a jihadi
bride.
They need to be looking for something and far too--there
are far too many messages online that are actually recruiting
young female people--young women and we need to help young
women flood the internet with good ideas.
Mr. Poe. Thank you. I am out of time, so if we have time
we'll come back to the last two witnesses to answer that
question. So save your answers that you wrote notes about.
I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking
member, Mr. Keating.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Bigio, I was--I recall a period when I think the
earliest or among the earlier training of women police, I was
in Afghanistan. General Allen was there at the time, as you
mentioned. I got to see some of the early training and actually
participate a little bit from my former law enforcement role
before I got to Congress.
But I am curious, since then are there more women training
women now? I mean, back then, it was multi-country training but
it was men getting involved in a lot of that training.
Are women training women? Have you seen that and how
successful has that been? I often envision some of our own U.S.
police officers going over there, training as well. But can you
comment on that?
Ms. Bigio. Thank you for the important question. And as you
note, there have been some programs which the U.S. Government
has invested in training women in security sectors and the
police and military and working to help increase their
representation.
There's far too little being done right now by the U.S.
Government in our--in the U.S. Government security cooperation
programs to really help ensure that women have the opportunity
serve and to contribute whether in uniform or in policy making
roles.
Mr. Keating. Yes, I do believe that. I believe that it's
one thing to train. It's another thing to show the example----
Ms. Bigio. Right.
Mr. Keating [continuing]. That there are women doing that
in our country as well. So thank you.
Another important question I had for all of you, if you
will, because it's one that I find very difficult for us as a
barrier. Let me use the example of early-age marriage, which I
am sure Dr. Hudson has done research in, too, in the school.
How do we deal with the cultural norms? It's great that we
are coming in and we want to do some of these things. We are
beginning to get statistics and recognize the problems before
they really incubate to a greater extent.
Now, how do we deal with that? I mean, these countries, for
instance, with early-age marriages that's the norm or it's
culturally accepted there.
What kind of barriers are there and how can we overcome
some of those barriers?
Ms. Hudson. That's terrific. Actually, that's one of the
core issues, I think, that breeds unstable societies. I want to
make a general comment and then make some specific comments and
then defer to my colleagues.
I know the CFR has done some terrific work on child
marriage. I want to make sure that Ms. Bigio also can answer
here.
But the first one is the notion that it's cultural is very
interesting because we've seen striking success in regionally-
based pacts, if you will--mutual understanding--to raise the
marriage age.
So in societies where we've seen very low age of marriage,
by law the marriage age is now being raised. Okay.
Now, of course, as you can imagine, there's a huge
disconnect between the new law and what's actually happening on
the ground. But the first step was getting the law changed and
we've seen stunning success in that over the past 10 years.
The second thing that has to do--that you have to do once
you have the law changed is to change the incentive structure.
In bride price societies, fathers of the bride can't marry
off their sons until they've married off their daughters first
to get the bride price so they can then afford to pay the bride
price back to their sons' wives' family and that pushes the age
of marriage down for girls vis-a-vis the age of marriage for
boys.
And so we can begin to disrupt these bride price societies
and we've seen some fascinating programs that attempt to offset
the incentive to, in a sense, sell off these girls young.
So I think on a conceptual level, change is possible. We've
seen it in the raising of the age of marriage for girls across
continents and, second of all, we've seen some very innovative
programming which the U.S. could back that begins to disrupt
these types of syndromes.
Ms. Bigio. I would note, just an addition on innovative
programs is--are opportunities to invest more in education so
where we see incentives for girls to continue their education
through secondary schools that that helps to raise the age in
which they marry.
Mr. Keating. Great.
Just quickly, I just offer you all the opportunity--if you
have--you think there are portals where we can get involved
directly in an oversight capacity or there are upcoming
opportunities to comment on issues that could be important as
well as learn more about some of the things that are working,
if you could feel free to contact us in the future as we move
forward on this. If we can be helpful intervening or at least
advocating for these things.
And I will yield back, Chairman. I have a lot of other
questions. This is really an important hearing we are having.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The chair will recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Garrett.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses
for being here.
I am going to take this opportunity to pound a drum that
the members of the committee who are here have heard me pound
before and perhaps you haven't and I hope you will join me and
assist me.
While I sit on this side of the chair, which might indicate
a party affiliation, I was not elected by my constituents to
serve along the lines or ideas of any particular individual
whether they occupy this August legislative body or a beautiful
white home on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and I am a staunch
advocate of the McGovern-Dole school feeding program which we
have seen cuts in over the past year--not only cuts but
proposed further cuts.
I would speak to essentially the reduction and
radicalization amongst males in a populace wherein females are
empowered by virtue of education.
I would ask you all if that's not an accurate
characteristic, and I am going to bounce around the committee
with no intended offense.
Ms. Bigio, am I pronouncing it right? Where you see more
educated women do you see a reduction in radicalization amongst
the male population? And I got--and I apologize because I am
running on a timer.
And so what the school feeding program does is creates an
alternative to a paradigm where in a world of subsistence
farming a mother and father might need to choose whether to put
their daughter in a field to essentially cultivate the food
that she might eat or where they might allow her to gain an
education because the food that she needs in order to live is
provided in exchange, essentially, for that education. Is that
an accurate characterization, Mr. Rafiq?
Mr. Rafiq. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Garrett. Again, and I apologize for how I do this. But
I hope that there are people listening not only in this room
but across this country and this city and across the world.
And so when you see female educational attainment we also
see a corresponding rise in economic opportunity within a
society for both men and women. Is that generally accurate, Ms.
Popal?
Ms. Popal. Yes, it is.
Mr. Garrett. And so when you see that rise in economic
empowerment we see a corresponding rise in things like hope and
it's perhaps cliche but probably quite real that a young person
who has hope to aspire toward some dream or goal in the future
is less likely to strap a bomb vest to themselves, for example.
Is that broadly accurate, Ms. Hudson?
Ms. Hudson. Absolutely. Grievance comes from despair.
Mr. Garrett. And so the problem that I would see with this
program is that it's hard to quantify the terrorists who were
never created. In other words, we invest on the front end.
We don't know what horrible acts we've prevented on the
back end and then a way that we can do this that empowers not
just women but people is school feeding programs which
encourages the education of young women, which elevates almost
uniformly entire societies and leads to a reduction in
radicalization.
I've got 2 minutes remaining. If you all can try to keep to
30 seconds.
Dr. Hudson, would you--and just bounce down the line--speak
to what you think might be positive outcomes of school feeding
and if this might help empower women and reduce radicalization
in nations where these sorts of things are a problem.
Ms. Hudson. Absolutely. The education of young people, both
female and male, offers greater opportunities for economic
advancement for them personally and for their families.
It also offers them larger horizons in terms of greater
knowledge about their world and their place in it and what they
can do for good.
So in all measures, both for girls and for boys, keeping
them in school and allowing them a basic education through
school feeding programs is laudatory.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you. And I think it was--I believe, and
I might misquote here--General Mattis, who said, ``We can
either provide foreign aid or we can start buying more bombs
and bullets.''
And having served in the military, I understand that
there's a time and a place for everything. But I would rather
help people than kill them.
Mr. Rafiq, if you could speak to school feeding and the
potential to help women and thus help reduce radicalization and
reduce terrorism.
Mr. Rafiq. I think, certainly, it's one of the strategies
that will pay off some dividends. However, I think there is a
mistake to think that lack of education is the thing that
actually drives extremism and terrorism.
The World Bank did a survey of foreign fighters in ISIS
joint territory--held territory and they found that the
overwhelming majority of people had a higher education, a
higher social standing than the national average of the
countries that they came from.
Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda, is a leading
surgeon--doctor. Bin Laden was an engineer, and there are many,
many other people.
Mr. Garrett. And we certainly saw this, right, and I think
the bin Laden is an engineer paradigm is a great one. But we
saw this even during the mujahedeen's fight against the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan.
Having said that, it was almost a rite of passage and I
would point out that the countries from which these fighters
generally come are countries where women aren't empowered
economically and oftentimes aren't educated. So it might be a
chicken-and-egg scenario.
I apologize. I am out of time. May I--would the chair
indulge me for 45 seconds so I can let Ms. Popal and Ms. Bigio
have a moment?
Mr. Poe. I will indulge you, but you can get more questions
asked in 5 minutes than anybody I've ever met. So--and fast as
well. But yes, you may.
Mr. Garrett. I just love being able to lead, Judge.
Ms. Popal, if you could speak to it.
Ms. Popal. Yes. I actually would like to share just an
example.
One of the women in our book, ``We Are Afghan Women: Voices
of Hope,'' Razia Jan, is the founder of the Zabuli Education
Center.
It's a private K through 12 girls' school that provides
more than 500 girls in Afghanistan with free education,
uniforms, shoes, warm coats, and meals.
That school has changed men's attitudes so much so that
they're willing to protect it and to send their daughters to
college, and this is just one concrete example that I wanted to
share with you all.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you.
Ms. Bigio--apologize if I get it wrong.
Ms. Bigio. Thank you.
No, it's critical that you're focussing on this--on this
important issue. We certainly see that providing opportunities
for women and girls including for education is what seeds the
ground for them to be able to contribute fully to their
society.
And when you have space in the education programs where you
have boys and girls learning together, engaging in dialogue
together, it forms an avenue for them to look at solving
problems together in their societies as well.
And so you're bringing all of your resources in that
country together to advance and pursue opportunities that will
then help to counter radicalization efforts.
I thank you all. Thanks to the chair and the other members
for their indulgence.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
The chair recognizes the gentle lady from Florida, Ms.
Frankel, who was the person who had the idea to have this
hearing. I will recognize the gentle lady from Florida.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you. It takes a woman, right?
Mr. Poe. That's right.
Ms. Frankel. So thank you, Mr. Poe. Thank you, gentlemen,
for having this hearing. Thank you, witnesses.
I am very taken by Dr. Hudson--your testimony that there
were 11 indicators of empowerment at the household level that
you say are the strongest predictor of terrorism.
Could you quickly tell me what they are?
Ms. Hudson. I brought all of my printouts for you if you
ever wanted to see them. [Laughter.]
Ms. Frankel. Oh, I would like to see them.
Ms. Hudson. Our 11 measures----
Mr. Poe. Without objection, they will be made part of the
record.
Ms. Hudson. Oh, okay.
Ms. Frankel. That would be terrific. Okay. That would be
great.
Ms. Hudson. May I just preface it by telling you an
anecdote, which is that about 10 years ago I had a critical
conversation with an Afghan female member of Parliament and I
was gushing naively about how empowered she was and, you know,
new generation of Afghan women.
And she said, ``Valerie, I could go home today and my
husband could say, `I divorce you' three times and I would be
divorced, and I would have nothing from my household. I would
not be able to take anything with me. I would not have any
place to go.''
She said, ``Even if I don't get divorced, I may have no say
in when my daughters and sons marry and who they marry, right.
How empowered am I really?'' And I realized that my focus on
these broader measures was beside the point.
We really need to look at the straitjacket under which
women live within their own households, according to marriage
and personal status law.
So we look at things such as patrilocal marriage--does the
bride have to move to the groom's household upon marriage--
polygymy, cousin marriage, bride price, level of domestic
violence within the home, whether there's female sanction for
femicide in the home and whether you can have legal exemption
if you rape a woman if you offer to marry her. So----
Ms. Frankel. Let me just--let me ask you this. How did you
come up with the 11 indicators or did you first look at factors
that correlate with terrorism or you knew what the 11 were?
Ms. Hudson. No. What we had done is based on almost 20
years of research. We understood that cage that's right there
at the household level and it's a cage that is created through
marriage law and personal status law and property rights that
disempowers the woman specifically within her household.
So she can't access the resources. She doesn't have the say
within her household. She can be beaten in her household, and
so forth.
Ms. Frankel. So just to get the correlation with the--with
the terrorism, is this making women less effective in terms of
stopping----
Ms. Hudson. You bet.
Ms. Frankel [continuing]. Their son or maybe even their
daughter from becoming--okay.
Ms. Hudson. Absolutely right.
Ms. Frankel. What I am curious--I mean, I don't want to
start a fight here--is what the other three of you think of
this research.
Mr. Rafiq. I think the research is absolutely fantastic and
I agree on the whole. But I think we have to recognize
something--that women from Western countries have left
societies where they have had--they've had full rights or
perceived to have full rights within the law and they've
decided to go and join ISIS for even less rights.
They've decided to go and join ISIS where they could be
beaten up. They could--they could have--their husbands could
have more than one wife and, in many cases, did, and they
decide to go there.
So I think just to look at the grievances on their own I
think is not enough because----
Ms. Frankel. But she--I think she's talking--are you
talking about, though, the grievances where the terrorism is
actually taking place or----
Ms. Hudson. When I talk about grievances, I am focussing on
the grievances that young men experience that make them prey to
these recruiters.
So grievances over bride price, grievances over scarcity of
women, grievances over lack of economic opportunity.
So I completely agree with Dr. Rafiq that one of the most
interesting things is to examine the situation of young women
who have left countries that supposedly guarantee their rights
to join places like ISIS that don't. But actually I don't think
we disagree.
Ms. Frankel. No, I think--because I--okay, because I'm just
trying to understand this. I think you're talking about factors
that are actually motivating the men to become terrorists----
Ms. Hudson. Yes. Right.
Ms. Frankel [continuing]. Because the women are being
segregated and there's not enough women to marry. I am just
saying, there's not enough women to marry or there's not enough
mothers to say, don't do this kind of thing.
I would like to hear the other two--what you think.
Ms. Popal. So I think in the context of Afghanistan, you
have a lot of women in rural areas who don't have the same
opportunities that women in urban areas have and generally the
level of education and the level of literacy is lower.
But I think it's important to remember that, you know,
sustainable development programs, if done correctly, can really
have an impact on the household level. So it doesn't
necessarily have to start in the household and move outward. It
can start outward and move inward.
One example is the National Solidarity program. It's a
government development program that created democratically-
elected community development councils and women have been a
part of these councils in Afghanistan that essentially fund
small-scale development projects.
And one evaluation showed that the National Solidarity
program increases girls' school attendance, their quality of
learning.
It increases child doctor and prenatal visits, the
probability that a woman would be able to go see a doctor for
her illness.
It even creates sort of a durable increase in the provision
of local government services specifically for women and it
increases men's acceptance of female political participation
and their participation in local governance.
So I think that's important to remember.
Ms. Bigio. I agree with--that it's critical that we look at
what are the barriers that are preventing women from fully
participating in society and some of these are legal.
They're also cultural and structural barriers that prevent
women from engaging in contributing in their families, in their
communities, in government, in decision making roles in the
security sector.
And as we discussed earlier, it's critical that those
policies and programs are shaped by the insights and
perspectives that women can bring and their engagement with
communities.
So if there are laws or other barriers that are preventing
women from engaging fully, then the resulting policies and
programs will not be as effective in making sure--in promoting
security in their countries.
So it is critical to look at the legal, structural, and
cultural barriers in a country that are preventing women from
being full participants and in promoting security.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you. My time is up. But I hope--maybe,
Mr. Poe, when you--your turn is up, I know--when they get back
to you--you had asked them to all give their suggestions.
What we haven't heard, which I hope they can relay, is what
is our State Department--what do our Federal agencies need to
start doing better. That would be of good help to us.
Mr. Poe. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Schneider.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, and I want to thank the chair and
the ranking member for having this meeting, my colleague from
Florida for suggesting this meeting, and especially to the
witnesses for your testimony today.
This has been eye opening. I think we are talking about a
very important issue.
I am going to start with Ms. Bigio. You sparked a thought
and it actually may relate to what Ms. Frankel was saying on
policy making.
You used the sense of we want to have at least 30 percent
of the people on the ground as women. I think as we go into
these programs, whether it is in uniform or not in uniform,
should the programs--I am going to frame this--feel free to
push back on it--is it better that we are doing separate
programs for women?
Parallel programs for women that we might be doing at the
same time for men, integrated programs where it is for both
women and men and putting that foot forward--does that make any
sense?
Ms. Bigio. It does, and I thank you for that great
question.
So there is incredible value in integrated programming and
ensuring that men and women are together, learning and setting
a norm that it is through the participation of men and women
together in society serving side by side in the military, in
the police, in legislatures, in government that together,
combining their insights and perspectives, they will put
forward the strongest and most effective policies and programs
and strategies.
So it is critical that we invest and continue to pursue
programs like that, which is why the 30 percent quota is making
sure that there are women represented there.
Now, there is an importance of targeted programming to
provide women with professional development, networking,
mentoring, to help them fast track their careers in sectors
where they have been under represented.
So when you're looking at programs to help increase
representation of women in the police and military, for
example, it's important to have training programs where they
are working side by side with the male colleagues with whom
they will serve, and it's also important to create networking
and professional development opportunities for them so that
they can discuss and address the barriers that they are sharing
and experiencing in their careers.
Mr. Schneider. All right. And this maybe is for the entire
panel--I would imagine then in many of these communities having
integrated programs is going to face resistance--that people
will push back.
How can we work with our resources with communities in
which we are engaged to address that push back and create a
resiliency to overcome those who are against us?
Ms. Bigio. So yes, wherever these programs are offered they
should be done in a culturally appropriate way.
So first off, when people come to participate in training
programs here in the U.S. Government, in regional center--in
the Defense Department's regional security studies programs,
for example, or in other programs here, that's an opportunity
where men and women are training together and are learning
together.
So in the programs that we offer that's a critical space to
ensure that we set aside slots and make sure that women have
the opportunity to participate where right now they do not.
In countries where there are different cultural practices,
there it's taking the lead from our partners in the governments
to understand what's the structure and set-up that will both--
that will best fit with the overall goal recognizing men and
women are serving together then in those sectors in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Men and women are serving together in the police, and so we
do want to ensure that there are training programs and other
areas where they are practicing that.
Mr. Schneider. Anyone else want to add to that?
Well, thank you. With that--Mr. Rafiq?
Mr. Rafiq. No, I was just going to say that I think
sometimes we have to be pragmatic and recognize that in some
countries, for example, let's pick Saudi Arabia.
If we were wanting to run programs in Saudi Arabia, it's
just not going to be possible to be able to currently have
programs where men and women are actually being trained
together, and sometimes we have to take low-hanging fruit and
eventually work to a situation where we can get and empower
those countries to be in situations where they can have men and
women working together and training together.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
I am going to ask the last two witnesses the question that
I asked the first two witnesses, and I am sure you remember the
question.
The question was, what can we do right now about this
issue?
Ms. Popal? And I want to thank you--I want to thank all of
you. But I am fascinated with your background and you have
tremendous insight into this very specific issue, as all four
of you do.
But go ahead.
Ms. Popal. Thank you.
I wanted to talk about two----
Mr. Poe. Microphone on?
Ms. Popal. Oh. I wanted to talk about two issues, just
briefly.
The first one is just reiterating the--reiterating the
importance of education and really building critical thinking
skills in women to be able to challenge some of these extremist
narratives and allow them the confidence and the voice to be
able to speak up and do that.
There have been studies out there that have interviewed
women and, unfortunately, there is not a lot of robust data on
the role of women and countering violent extremism in
Afghanistan.
But what does exist really points to the fact that women do
get listened to within the household but a lot of times they
don't have the confidence, or they don't have the knowledge, or
they don't have the education or the literacy to be able to
push back in a way that make sense. So that would be one thing.
The other point I wanted to talk about is just the
importance of advancing economic opportunity. We, at the Bush
Institute, are working on promoting a women's leadership
program that focuses on women who are advancing economic
opportunity for everyone, not just for other women, in their
communities and their countries.
And this is a multi-country program. It spans the Middle
East, North Africa, and Afghanistan, and it's an effort to
really show the value that women bring to societies as a whole.
So, again, education and economic opportunity are two ways
that we can work toward sustainable development in Afghanistan
and that in and of itself will help counter violent extremism.
Mr. Poe. Ms. Bigio, if you could be brief, I would
appreciate it.
Ms. Bigio. Thank you.
Right now, the White House has the pen in developing a new
national counterterrorism strategy and a new national strategy
on countering violent extremist groups.
These should include attention to women as enablers and
mitigators of terrorism and it should include a specific
objective and focus on these issues.
Second is investment. As the budget is set, women are on
the front lines already doing this work and the U.S. Government
has done little to support them.
This means ensuring that there are more economic support
funds available as well as ensuring that the U.S. Government's
security funds, whether antiterrorism or our funds to support
police and military, that these pots are also used to support
women in the security sector and ensure that they have an
opportunity to serve more.
To Mr. Keating's earlier question of the importance of
increasing security cooperation efforts to support more female
representation in police and military, there are women in the
U.S. that--in police that could be training more of their
counterparts.
This is a decision in terms of contractors. We should
ensure domestically we are leading by example. We are
supporting the opportunities for women to serve in the military
and police here and that they then have the opportunity to
serve--to help train and support their counterparts around the
world.
Mr. Poe. Thank you. I yield to the ranking member, Mr.
Keating, from Massachusetts.
Mr. Keating. This is a quick round so I will only ask one
question.
We've learned, you know, this afternoon how much research--
decades of research has been done and how, with our 11
indicators or more--we have more information.
As we get that information, what is our State Department--
what is the U.S. Government as well as NGOs doing?
When you're looking at where maybe the next wave of
extremism is going to come--countries like Bangladesh, the
Philippines, Southeast Asia--we know what's happening there.
It would make great sense to me if we know these indicators
and can get information on this. How well are we doing
getting--trying to get ahead of the curve a little bit there?
Ms. Hudson. I am so glad you asked that question because
that's the question I've been asking myself.
I received a 4-year $1.3 million grant from the Defense
Department to do this research and I am having an awful hard
time finding anyone in the Defense Department who would like to
actually read this research or listen to this research.
So I am searching for partners within the Defense
Department who can take what we've done on the Defense
Department's dime and begin to integrate it into intelligence
and early warning indicators and also looking at practices,
because nations know that they are destabilized by these
practices.
For example, the Saudi Government has placed a stiff cap on
bride prices and wedding costs in order to prevent these types
of inflationary bubbles that occur within their society.
So I think there's a lot more to be done. Now, I know in
the State Department we do have the Office of Global Women's
Issues.
But my understanding is that their voice has been muted. We
do not have a global ambassador for women's issues, which is a
serious lack on our part if we are going to take these issues,
you know, as importantly as they should be.
So I think there's a lot we need to do. But there's--as you
say, we already know a lot. What's missing is the action
channels to transfer these knowledge--this knowledge into
programs and priorities and funding.
Mr. Poe. Thank you.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Garrett.
Mr. Garrett. So I want to start out by suggesting that in
the year 2018--and I understand that it's not tantamount to
purchase, but that any country that institutes any practice
that is called bride pricing might be someone who we should
consider the nature of our business interaction with regardless
of their culture, customs, or tradition.
I mean, it's a head scratcher. I could talk about Saudi
Arabia and lots of other countries for a long time and that's
not what we are here for.
Mr. Rafiq, I kind of gave you short shrift earlier and I
want to give you an opportunity to circle back around. I think
my assertion is, however, that in any culture where there's
some degree of education and some degree of hope, which is
usually provided in conjunction with education, radicalization
is less prevalent. I am just going to give you the floor for
the balance of my time.
Mr. Rafiq. Thank you.
I think that if we look at the term radicalization and
radicalism, I think radicalism has often been the preserve of
the middle class and the educated class.
Whether that's far left radicalization or whether that's
far right or whether, in this case, Islam is radicalization.
And the problem that we have--look, I am totally in favor
of fixing grievances. I am totally in favor of people becoming
more educated because I think that can help civil society as a
whole and can be a--help to build more resilient communities
against a whole range of problems.
But if we just focus on the grievance culture--if we just
focus on the grievances--if we just focus on just the education
side of it, well, the four of us here probably have our own
personal grievances at this very moment in time.
We can sleep tonight in our own beds. We'll probably have
problems and my problem to me will be bigger than somebody
else's problem and then tomorrow my problem might be something
else, et cetera.
I think that if we just focus on the grievances, we are
going to be playing Whac-A-Mole. We should, as a civil society,
educate people more because it will help.
We should focus on grievances as a civil society but if we
don't focus on the ideology--we don't focus on Islamism, and
the--and reverse engineer the intellectual, the ideological,
social, emotional, spiritual aspects of Islamism and Salafi
jihadism, we won't fix this problem long term, and that's all I
was saying.
Mr. Garrett. So--no, and I think we found some commonality
and I will tell you that it strikes me as interesting that we
are--you know, I think we are asking Saudi Arabia to revise
textbooks that they send literally across the globe while it's
not negotiating trillion-dollar arms deals, right.
And I have no problem with--now, I like the Saudis so long
as they behave in a manner consistent behind closed doors as
they do publicly and that's what makes me shake my head.
And I understand that there are cultural differences and I
respect them, and I think that we should respect individuals'
rights to live as they choose.
But in the society where individuals don't get to make that
choice, I think that the United States foreign policy should be
dictated by who we choose to do business with.
It's more efficient than trying to figure out who you need
to kill before they kill you.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, for your indulgence and
thanks to the members of the panel.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The chair recognizes the gentle lady from Florida.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Poe.
I think one of the--among other disappointments of this
administration has been the cutting off of health funds to
women all over the world, cutting off the funds of the--cutting
off the U.S. Population Fund, which I know does work with
trafficking and child marriage prevention.
I just--I would be interested in hearing--I should say, on
the basis of what I think is a false premise that these
organizations and NGOs and so forth are performing abortions,
which they're not.
But I would like to hear your opinion on that and in terms
of how cutting off so much--so many millions of dollars toward
women's health and preventing some of these practices affects
terrorism.
Ms. Hudson. Well, we know that demographic factors
absolutely play into terrorism. Researchers have shown that
youth bulges especially are associated with internal
instability and conflict within nation states.
I have lived long enough to know that women do not wish to
have more children than they can take care of. It is when women
do not have choice over how many children they have that you
get youth bulges.
So I think any policy which reduces women's access to means
by which they can control how many children they have is at
odds with our desire to see the world be a more peaceful place.
That having been said, I agree with you that while
certainly it's a defensible position to say that U.S. funds
should not go toward organizations that perform abortions, I
can see that.
I think the distinction you made with organizations----
Ms. Frankel. Incidentally, that's not my position but that
is the position of the United States Government.
Ms. Hudson. Exactly right.
Ms. Frankel. Yes.
Ms. Hudson. I can see that what you're saying is that there
are many organizations that do not perform abortion but
nevertheless tell women that abortion is an option and send
them off to, you know, to sources where that may be had.
I think that we, you know, probably do have an interest in
seeing those organizations succeed. So I agree with you that it
is odd that we have cut off money to organizations that don't
perform abortions but yet apprise women of means by which to
control their fertility.
Ms. Bigio. Having access to health care is also one of the
barriers that prevent women from being able to engage fully in
society.
So when they do not have access to the services that they
need to ensure their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their
families, then this is a barrier, again, to a society being
able to draw on its full population to promote prosperity and
stability.
So yes, investment in health care, for example, for women
and children is part of the full equation to ensure that women
and children have the health and opportunity to contribute.
Mr. Poe. The gentle lady yields back her time? She does.
Thank you very much, all of you, for being here today. We
appreciate it immensely.
This has been one of the better informative hearings that
we've had in a long time and I thank you for your time and the
information.
All of the members of the subcommittee, even those that
were not here, may have questions of you and they will produce
those in writing and then we would like a written response on a
timely basis, if you will.
I thank you very much. This subcommittee hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]