On International Women’s Day: Spotlighting gender-sensitive approaches to counterterrorism and P/CVE.

08 March 2024

The United Nations International Women's Day, held 8 March, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. Gender mainstreaming is often overlooked in counterterrorism and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) conducive to terrorism efforts, despite women and girls’ involvement both in terrorism and violent extremism conducive to it, as well as in counterterrorism and P/CVE. On International Women’s Day, the Forum marks the importance of considering and including women and girls in counterterrorism, de-radicalization, and P/CVE efforts.

The GCTF’s extensive focus on including gender-sensitive approaches to counterterrorism has led to various good practices and toolkits being developed.

GCTF list of Framework Documents addressing gender-sensitive approaches:

• The Gender and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Policy Toolkit
• Good Practices on Women and Countering Violent Extremism
• Addendum to the GCTF Good Practices on Women and Countering Violent Extremism, with a Focus on Mainstreaming Gender
• Ankara Memorandum on Good Practices for a Multisectoral Approach to Countering Violent Extremism (Good Practice 17)
• Good Practices on Community Engagement and Community-Oriented Policing as Tools to Counter Violent Extremism (Good Practice Number 5)
• Memorandum on Criminal Justice Approaches to the Linkages between Terrorism and Core International Crimes, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Crimes, Human Trafficking, Migrant Smuggling, Slavery, and Crimes against Children
• Abu Dhabi Memorandum on Good Practices for Education and Countering Violent Extremism
• Initiative to Address the Life Cycle of Radicalization to Violence - The Role of Families in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: Strategic Recommendations and Programming Options