Introduction
“… Women’s and girls’ active participation in society, as educated and empowered individuals, as teachers, mentors, role models, journalists, faith leaders, healers, and community leaders [,] builds resilience to the influence and spread of violent extremism.”
Kenya-based women’s rights activist Sureya Roble made the above remark in 2015 during the first ever open briefing on the role of women in countering terrorism and violent extremism, held by the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee.
The significance of women in Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) has indeed been increasingly recognized worldwide, in parallel with the rising number of women as actors in terrorist plots.
Nonetheless, discourses pertaining to women in P/CVE tend to emphasize one particular role of women: mothers. Due to their arguably fundamental roles in keeping family members away from the influence of violent extremism, labels like “emotional leaders” and “early detection system” are often attributed to mothers, which is often entwined with their marital status as wives.
This ultimately drives many countries to put mothers at the centre of conversations about women and P/CVE, despite the multiple roles women and mothers play in daily life.
Indonesia is no exception to the rule. More attention has been drawn towards women’s role in P/CVE, especially following high-profile terrorist plots by female perpetrators. The urgency to enforce P/CVE measures has put mothers under the spotlight.
Indonesia’s National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT) has reaffirmed such importance, echoing the notion of mothers as “frontliners” and “central bastions” in protecting their children and husbands from being radicalized.
The same notion has also permeated academic discussion. A study regarding mothers in families affiliated with the East Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) finds that women’s agency in the cycle of violent extremism, particularly through their maternal roles, could manifest through their roles as cycle endorsers or as cycle breakers. Another paper corroborates this, emphasizing the “dual roles” that women – particularly stay-at-home mothers – play in preventing radicalism domestically and socially.
However, it is pertinent that such views be properly scrutinized.
The Risks of Over-Emphasizing Mothers’ Roles
In the realm of P/CVE, mothers stand on the thin line between the private and the public domains – between their own domestic life and the national, “hard” security concerns.
The common argument is that, as mothers and wives, women possess a strategic role to prevent violent extremism or break the cycle of violent extremism among family members. In a bigger context, their role in this is considered an integral part of ensuring national security.
While this argument cannot be completely refuted, Indonesia should be careful not to put too much emphasis on mothers as the agents of P/CVE to avoid the “instrumentalization” of mothers.
When the notion of motherhood is instrumentalized by the state for its own political objectives, grave consequences are likely to be inflicted on the concerned mothers when they fail to successfully accomplish their duties.
Over-emphasizing the roles of mothers in P/CVE generates the simplistic logic that “good mothers do not produce radicals”, therefore stigmatizing women whose family members are radicalized. Unfair labels such as “bad mothers” could thus emerged, exposing such individuals to even more social alienation and exclusion. Worse, they may also be branded as “radicals” despite their non-involvement in any radical activities.
Indonesia has also seen cases where family members of radicalized individuals are being exiled by their surrounding communities due to the stigma imposed on them.
For example, the wife of Fazri Pahlawan (also known as Abu Zee Ghuroba) – the terrorist who stabbed Minister Wiranto in 2019 – has opened up about how her husband’s radical activities have led to the marginalization and expulsion of her family. This has resulted in a variety of consequences, such as difficulty for her children to get accepted into schools.
Such impacts might be exacerbated if mothers and wives are further instrumentalized by the state, for instance, through official policy frameworks. In that scenario, the radicalization of their husbands or children can be interpreted as their “failure” in being the frontline “agents” of P/CVE measure.
Consequently, women from lower socio-economic statuses and cultural backgrounds, who are typically vulnerable to such stigma, face an elevated risk due to an inadequate safety net to back them up when they are forcibly evicted from their community. On top of that, they are also disregarded by the state for not being a “beneficial instrument”.
Furthermore, drawing upon the concern that the centrality of motherhood in P/CVE could potentially transfer the responsibility of the state to mothers, this shift of responsibility is a problematic notion in itself.
Most mothers are already grappling with domestic labour in their own homes. Such activity tends to be devalued because women are essentialized as “natural carers” who perform “a labour of love”. Expecting them to carry out P/CVE duties means putting additional burden on top of their underappreciated conventional domestic labour.
This is crucial in the context of Indonesia, where the idea of women and their presumed strategic position in P/CVE (as mothers and wives) is often assumed to be something “natural”. Such a notion puts an unfair emphasis on mothers’ maternal instincts and strong emotional faculty as crucial elements in preventing violent extremism within the institution of family.
This essentialist view overlooks the complexities of mothers – and women in general – in P/CVE. Consequently, it could shift Indonesia’s collective responsibility of P/CVE under its “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approaches to the sole responsibility of mothers at the forefront.
It is wrong to assume that all mothers are well-equipped with the skills and resources to implement P/CVE measures. Besides, it is equally wrong to expect that all women and mothers conform to their essentialized characteristics to begin with. Just because the patriarchal society they are part of expects them to be loving wives and mothers does not mean all women want to and can embrace such roles.
The lines between “empowering” and “burdening” women are thus obscure in this issue, similar to those between “embracing” and “instrumentalizing”. Overstating the strategic roles of mothers as P/CVE agents without an in-depth scrutiny of such expectations and holistic support will only lead to the latter – burdening and instrumentalizing women.
Navigating Women’s Roles in Indonesia’s P/CVE Strategy
There is an imperative to embrace and empower mothers instead of merely perceiving women as P/CVE agents or “frontliners”. The state needs to reaffirm that mothers are a part of its “whole-of-society” approach who team up with other components of society and synergize with the “whole-of-government” strategy in implementing P/CVE measures.
Mothers also need sufficient support to undertake their responsibilities as P/CVE agents.
Initiatives such as MotherSchools have been enacted by Women without Borders, in collaboration with local community leaders and the women’s wings of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, in regions prone to radicalization.
The program aims to educate and train mothers to “translate their unique potential into action” by protecting their children from violent extremism. In MotherSchools, mothers are taught about the signs that their children might have been radicalized and how to approach their children in such a situation.
Besides, pengajian or study circles that invite women, especially mothers, and incorporate P/CVE elements have also become more frequent across Indonesia, as exemplified by the Yogyakarta-based Assyuhada religious group.
Such initiatives are important to be supported by the government, which has run its own P/CVE programs via BNPT’s regional Counter-Terrorism Communication Forum (FKPT).
The provision of social and/or economic protection and assistance for women should also be carried out. This should target not only those already affected (such as the innocent wives of convicted terrorists), but also be applied in preventive contexts – which might concern larger structural issues such as education, employment and women empowerment.
Nevertheless, the Indonesian government must also amplify its P/CVE engagement with women beyond their specific roles as mothers and wives. The government should seek to maintain productive collaboration with women-led civil society organizations and their pertinent networks including, but not limited to, Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) Indonesia and the Working Group on Women and P/CVE (WGWC). Simultaneously, it is also important to enforce gender mainstreaming measures in strategic security sectors such as BNPT itself.
Conclusion
By pursuing women’s active and substantive participation in the “public” domain of P/CVE, Indonesia would benefit from more strategic approaches in addressing female extremists. This ranges from comprehending their motives to managing gender-sensitive deradicalization programs.
On top of that, the efforts to support women’s contribution towards P/CVE in the “private” domain, or through their “traditional” roles as mothers and wives, could also be improved as previously discussed. To decouple women’s contribution in P/CVE and their traditional roles altogether risks dismissing their distinctive potentials. However, overstating those potentials without adequate support also risks putting women in susceptible positions. Hence, the Indonesian government needs to find a good balance to navigate women’s involvement in its P/CVE strategy.
