Do the Women of ISIS Deserve Rights?

Azadeh Moaveni (International Crisis Group)

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Abstract

What is the line between victim and collaborator?

In early 2014, the Islamic State clinched its control of Raqqa in Syria. Baghdadi, the then leader of ISIS, urged Muslims around the world to join the caliphate. Witnessing the brutal oppression of the Assad regime in Syria, and moved to fight for justice, thousands of men and women heeded his call.

In her latest book, Guest House for Young Widows: Women of ISIS , Azadeh Moaveni looks at a cast of young women who in many instances left their comfortable lives behind to join the Islamic state, but instead of finding a land of justice and piety, they found themselves trapped within the most brutal terrorist regime of the twenty-first century, a world of chaos and upheaval and violence.

How do we judge these women who both suffered and inflicted intense pain?

In this talk Azadeh Moaveni looks at the female militancy, depiction of ISIS women as either ‘naïve jihadi brides’ or ‘calculating monsters’ and asks what compels a modern woman to join ISIS?

Biography

Azadeh Moaveni is Director of the Project for Gender and Conflict at the International Crisis Group and Lecturer in Journalism at New York University, London. She has reported and written from the Middle East for nearly two decades, starting as a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt in 1998, and then as correspondent for TIME magazine and the Los Angeles Times , working across Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Iraq. Her work has focused throughout on how women and girls are impacted by political instability and conflict, as well as the interplay between militarism, Islamism and women’s social status and rights. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad , Honeymoon in Tehran , and co-author, with Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening , which has been translated into over forty languages. A Pulitzer finalist, her book Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS , was published in autumn of 2019 and shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. She writes for the London Review of Books , the Guardian , and the New York Times , among other publications.

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. Online Registration

Chair: Narguess Farzad (SOAS)

Photo credit: Y. Boechat ( VOA )

Organiser: SOAS Middle East Institute

Contact email: lmei@soas.ac.uk