The parabola of women and minors in the “global caliphate”: vulnerability, illusions and trau-mas on the path from joining to rejecting totalitarian “jihad”

Abstract

The article analyses the essential features of terrorist propaganda, radicalisation and recruitment to the Islamic State which target women, adolescents and children. The investigation focuses on the central importance of vulnerability as well as the forms of circumvention and exploitation of women and minors inside and outside the Islamic State, paying particular attention to online propaganda techniques, recruitment practices and violence. The author narrows the scope of the investigation by examining a case study of radicalisation, indoctrination and terrorist recruitment involving women and minors in Italy. In the final section, the manifold and multifactorial trajectories of radicalisation, along with their reversible nature and the need to improve competitive counter-strategies for the "market of terrorist recruitment", is provided.