Tunisian Women Go on ‘Sex Jihad’ to Syria, Minister Says

Tunisia, the largely moderate North African country, has struggled to stymie the flow of hundreds of young men leaving to fight alongside militants in Syria’s more than two-year-long, bloody war.

Now, the interior minister says, the country must also slow a stream of young Tunisian women leaving for Syria on “sexual jihad.”

The Arabic term (jihad al-nikah) describes a phenomenon, evident in other Arab countries as well, of women traveling to the battlefield to provide comfort—and sexual favors—for the militant fighters. Some hardline jihadists consider the practice a legitimate complement to Holy War.

“They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100″ militants, the minister, Lofti Ben Jeddou said during a national security address to members of the National Constituent Assembly, according to the AFP. “After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of ‘jihad al-nikah,’ they come home pregnant.”

The minister did not say how many women have traveled to Syria, though local media reports have suggested hundreds of women have done so. He added that the government has prevented some 6,000 Tunisians from traveling to Syria.

The jihadists fighting on the frontlines of the Syrian war seem like the rock stars of fundamentalist Islam. Fans make internet videos compiling their greatest hits, and Islamist-run TV stations extol the fighters’ manliness and fighting prowess.

And just like rock stars, these religious fanatics also attract groupies.

In December, for instance, Mohamed al-Arifi, a hard-line Salafi cleric from Saudi Arabia, allegedly issued a religious decree allowing jihadist fighters to temporarily engage in “intercourse marriages” with “females as young as 14 years old,”. Once the hookup is over, the temporary marriage is considered dissolved.

The fatwa seems to have resonated among at least 13 Tunisian girls. A few weeks ago, Tunisian newspapers said that a young Tunisian man divorced his wife, and that they both headed to Syria almost a month ago to “allow her to engage in sexual jihad with the mujahideen” there.

Although this fatwa was not issued by a Tunisian cleric or a religious institution — whether official or civil — it did not prevent a number of Tunisian girls from traveling to Syria to perform “sexual jihad.” According to analysts, the reason is that Tunisian youth are greatly influenced by Salafist sheikhs living abroad.

Former Mufti of Tunisia Sheikh Othman Battikh said in April that girls were being “fooled” into going to Syria, where they were forced in providing sexual services he called “prostitution.”

source:  world.time.com

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