US Approaches to Countering Violent Extremism Must Prioritize Women

Violent Extremism CVE Gender

Terrorist groups excel at exploiting gender dynamics: they track the location of female security personnel and use that information to their strategic advantage by dressing as women to cross checkpoints, knowing they won’t be searched; they prey on the vulnerability of young girls and deploy them as suicide bombers; they impose harsh restrictions on women’s freedoms aware of how this tears at the social fabric of communities.