JAFFA, Israel – The surveillance unit of extremist rulings at Egypt’s Fatwa Council has issued a warning against the Islamic State’s attempts to recruit female “sex jihadists.”
The unit said it found that IS has recently stepped up its efforts on social media and other propaganda outlets to recruit women, telling them their role would be to “strengthen the warriors’ family life.”
According to the unit, the women are being recruited as sex slaves in order to offer the militants sexual “perks” in between battles.
The organization’s propaganda apparatus has sent out pictures of “female jihadists” who praise “family life” under the ISIS caliphate, while emphasizing the importance of bearing children to carry on jihad in the future. The messages highlight the “satisfaction” female warriors feel by “providing the male warrior with the family life he yearns for.”
The Egyptian watchdog group said that the female candidates undergo a tough screening process. They have to be 18-25 years old and are offered 25,000 Egyptian pounds (US$50) monthly in exchange for their “services.”
They said that most women who answer IS’s call, especially from the West, do it in order to “make amends” for their past promiscuity.
The Arab media has covered the issue of “sex jihadists” extensively. They are women who are formally married to IS fighters, mainly for the purposes of sexual intercourse.
One high-profile case was a Tunisian woman who, over 27 days, had sex with more than 100 IS militants, with the blessing of her husband.
When her husband was injured in battle, she was allowed to go to Turkey; she continued on to Tunisia, where she was reportedly arrested. Upon her arrest, she said that she was part of a group of 17 women of different nationalities, led by a Somali woman, whose purpose was to provide sexual services to the men.