The horrifying ongoing civil wear in Syria is now affecting people beyond the Syrian borders.
Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has recently revealed that local women have been traveling to Syria to wage a “sex jihad” by comforting Islamist fighters in battle.
The Tunisian girls “are [sexually] swapped between 20, 30, and 100 rebels and they come back bearing the fruit of sexual contacts in the name of sexual jihad and we are silent doing nothing and standing idle,”the minister said during an address to the National Constituent Assembly on Thursday.
“After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of ‘jihad al-nikah’ – (sexual holy war, in Arabic) – they come home pregnant,” he added.
The jihad al-nikah permits extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, and is considered as a legitimate form of holy war among some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists.
Ben Jaddou did not reveal how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for the sex jihad. He also did not say how many Tunisian women have returned home pregnant with the children of the jihadist fighters.
He said that since he assumed office in March, he has managed to prevent six thousand Tunisians from traveling to Syria.
Reports say that over the past 15 years, thousands of Tunisians have joined the jihadists across the world in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
In August, general director of public security service in Tunisia Mostafa Bin Omar said that Al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar Shariah was offering minor girls with their faces covered as sexual offerings for jihadist fighters.
What do you think about the concept of ‘sex jihad’? Despite it being a religious pardon, is it also a patriarchal making use of vulnerability of society? Share your thoughts.
