Muslim women are not all one monolithic group
BBC:
By Nazir Afzal, who was the Chief Crown Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for North West England from 2011-15.
Hundreds of people from the UK have travelled to support or fight for jihadist organisations in Syria and Iraq, according to official UK figures. Most of them are thought to have joined the group that calls itself Islamic State.
But many organisations in the UK, set up by Muslim women, are now actively working to stop people joining extremist groups.
Nazir Afzal believes there are parallels between radicalisation and sexual grooming
Nazir Afzal is a former chief crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service for north-west England. He prosecuted the Rochdale sexual grooming cases in 2012, and has also worked closely with these women’s groups.
Here he outlines five things they have taught him.
1. Community schemes work best.
Government anti-radicalisation measures like Channel and Prevent, though said to be “tried and tested”, are not working. The latest figures show that more than 1,000 people have gone to Syria. We need to replace these top-down schemes with ones based in the community, run by new people.
Women are key to combating radicalisation, to whom girls can go for reassurance, advice and pastoral care. And the state needs to ensure that any organisations it funds have at least 25% women on board, with the aim of increasing this figure to at least 50% in three years’ time.
While I was Chief Crown Prosecutor I was privileged to work with dozens of women’s groups, often from minority communities, working to protect our young. They get little recognition from the authorities, have to spend thousands of hours annually raising funds and even get attacked by men trying to put them down or worse.
Some of these women, in tackling violence against women and girls, have also been building the capacity and capability of other women and their families to prevent children being radicalised.
2. Radicalisation is about grooming the vulnerable.
The problem of radicalisation is misunderstood. Some suggest that it is a battle between two ways of life, when it is nothing more than the grooming of the most vulnerable by those who target them.
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