ISIS’s Female Morality Police

Photo Credit: NBC News

Forty lashes was the standard punishment for women who wore high heels or headscarves with designs on them in areas of Raqqa and Mosul.[1] These lashes were doled out by the Hisbah division of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which focused on strictly enforcing Sharia Law in ISIS conquered territories and recruiting more individuals to join ISIS’s ranks. More commonly known as the ‘morality police,’[2] the Hisbah division included an all-female unit called the al-Khansaa Brigade. Led by Umm Hamza, this unit was known for its brutal torture of women for offenses as simple as not wearing a head scarf or being outside without a male chaperone.[3]

Founded in February of 2014, the group of roughly 60 single women aged 18-25[4] patrolled the ISIS controlled areas of Syria and Iraq. They enforced Sharia Law throughout Raqqa,[5] Mosul, and even in refugee camps as ISIS lost territory and power.[6] Paid $230 a month, member of the al-Khansaa Brigade also received food, shelter, and basic firearms training.[7] While their main purpose was to search women at checkpoints – a security technique implemented to catch men attempting to sneak through in women’s clothing – the women also oversaw brothels of Yazidi slaves.[8] Yazidi girls captured as sex slaves were subjected to daily physical abuse and rape, and some were sold to ISIS fighters for as little as $30.[9] That these brothels were monitored by other women speaks to the power dynamic between Brigade members and the captured girls, as well as the religious tensions between the Yazidi tradition and other sects of Islam. Members of the al-Khansaa Brigade also strictly enforced the dress code for women in organization.[10] Such violations included not wearing a headscarf,[11] exposing their hands,[12] or wearing head coverings with a designs on them.[13] While some punishments included public floggings, other times women simply disappeared.[14] Umm Azma told NBC that her neighbor had been taken away by the al-Khansaa Brigade for not covering her hair while she was cleaning outside of her house.[15] “Then they took her away for lashings. She never came back.”[16]

Three past members of the al-Khansaa Brigade escaped to Turkey and were interviewed by NBC.[17] Two other women, interviewed by Independent, corroborated the stories that 40 lashings were given to women of all ages for violating the dress code, while 60 lashed were given to women who tried to escape.[18] The women also said that they were married, sometimes more than once, to ISIS fighters, many of whom were killed in battle or became suicide bombers.[19] While each woman had a slightly different experience with the al-Khansaa Brigade, all of the women interviewed said they regretted the violence they enacted against other women.[20] Despite the change of heart experienced by some women who are able to escape, the al-Khansaa Brigade’s reputation for violence is not overstated. Reports indicate that members of the Brigade tortured and beat young women to death for lifting their veils or for wearing coverings the Brigade deemed too transparent. “In another case, al-Khansaa members used a bear-trap-like torture device—known as the ‘biter’—on the chest of a 24-year-old woman who was breastfeeding in public, an act which violated ISIS’s modesty laws.”[21]

The example of the al-Khansaa Brigade is instructive for several reasons. Namely, it emphasizes the importance of gender in combatting terrorism. Oftentimes, counterterrorism operations assume that leaders, strategists, and insurgents are exclusively male. The al-Khansaa Brigade demonstrates that this is simply not the case, as many refugees were more afraid of the women of the al-Khansaa Brigade than the male members of ISIS.[22] To focus counterterrorism operations exclusively on male targets would be to ignore the cultural obligations of women under Sharia Law, the counterinsurgency necessity of women searching women, and the recruitment of young women as ISIS brides. Such would be a boon to women like Umm Hamza who seek to use their femininity to further the goals of the Islamic State and would extend the reign of terror of one of the most prolific terrorist organizations today.