From Daesh to ‘Diaspora’: Tracing the Women and Minors of Islamic State By Joana Cook and Gina Vale ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank Jillian Hunchak for her extensive research assistance, the fellows at ICSR for assisting in foreign language searches, and Charlie Winter for his review and feedback. CONTACT DETAILS For questions, queries and additional copies of this report, please contact: ICSR King’s College London Strand London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom T. +44 20 7848 2065 E.
[email protected] Twitter: @icsr_centre Like all other ICSR publications, this report can be downloaded free of charge from the ICSR website at www.icsr.info. © ICSR 2018 Cover picture by Tasnim News under CC BY-SA 4.0 From Daesh to ‘Diaspora’: Tracing the Women and Minors of Islamic State Table of contents Executive summary 3 1 Introduction 7 2 Dataset and methodology 11 Dataset 11 Definitions 13 3 IS affiliates in the ‘caliphate’ 21 Women affiliated with IS: A global picture 22 Box 1 Tajikistan: Identifying and responding to IS affiliates and returnees 25 Minors affiliated with IS: A global picture 28 Women and minors prevented from travelling 34 Box 2 The other destinations: Libya, Afghanistan, and the Philippines 36 4 IS affiliates after the fall of the ‘caliphate’ 41 ‘The unknowns’: The challenges in accounting for IS affiliates in Iraq and Syria 41 The physical fall of the ‘caliphate’ and missing IS affiliates 44 Female affiliates: Where are they now? 46 Minor affiliates: Where are they now? 50 Women as potential security threats 53 Minors as potential