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Despite a recent flurry of media reports about young Tunisian girls returning from ‘sexual jihad’ in Syria, there seems to be little concrete evidence of their existence. (photo by REUTERS/Ali Jarekji)
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By: Hazem Al Amin
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“Oh, lovers on Habib Bourguiba Avenue! … No, our girls did not go to Syria looking for love! They were forced to go there,” said an old drunken man, who was preaching to passersby late at night on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in the Tunisian capital, facing the headquarters of the Interior Ministry. The latter is the site where Tunisia’s interior minister dropped the bomb by mentioning the “100 Tunisians girls who came back from sexual jihad [in Syria].”
The speech by Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou, which he delivered at the Constituent Assembly three weeks ago, about “sexual jihad” caused dozens of international media outlets and journalists to flock to Tunisia to look for these “sexual jihad” women. These women, however, have yet to be found.
Nevertheless, the story of Lamia, a Tunisian girl, has gone viral in Tunisian media. It has been said that Lamia went to Syria, came back pregnant and had contracted HIV, and has been locked at her home in the city of Bizerte in the far north of Tunisia. Journalists went to Bizerte in search of Lamia, whom the whole world has come to know, but there is no trace of Lamia.
Women’s rights organizations are part of the political divide. They want the minister’s statements to be true, but there is no firm evidence to prove them. Thus, they remain silent, because speaking out in the case would be to the advantage of the Islamic Ennahda movement — their traditional opponent, which is accused of facilitating the trip of young Tunisians to Syria to perform jihad.
Ahmed, a Salafist preacher, stands In front of the Al-Fateh Mosque in Tunis. This is where Seifallah ben Hassine — known as Abu Iyad al-Tunisi — emir of the dissolved Ansar al-Sharia group, used to pray. “We take our wives along with us to Syria, or we marry Syrian women there. This is what we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said on the issue of sexual jihad.
So, why did the minister make these allegations? The viable explanation, in the absence of any evidence to this effect, is that the US report on the assassination of opposition member Mohamed al-Brahimi was to be brought up during the Constituent Assembly’s session. It has been asserted that the Ministry of Interior had been informed that Brahimi would be assassinated 11 days before his death and did not take any measures in this regard. Thus, to divert the attention away from this issue, Ben Jeddou has randomly brought up the story of “100 Tunisian women, who came back pregnant from Syria.”
Ennahda has embraced Ben Jeddou’s claims about sexual jihad to avoid a scandal that would make its government part of Brahimi’s assassination.
However, the scandal revolving around sexual jihad will soon be replaced with another scandal, if Ben Jeddou fails to find a way to deal with the issue. Yet, the story of the 100 Tunisian women who came back pregnant from Syria will not pass unnoticed, should it turn out to be fabricated.
Some observers expect that a few women will show up to uphold the minister’s claims. This is not to mention that Ben Jeddou has told a French media outlet that he has 15 documented cases only on this issue.
The flocking journalists, who have failed to find one case of the 100 cases that the minister talked about, started to dig into the source of the story. Preacher Mohammed al-Arifi — who some have said issued a sexual jihad fatwa — denied this.
According to some reporters who came to Tunisia, the number of words in the tweet that was attributed to Arifi exceed the number of words allowed in one tweet, which proves that it was a bogus claim. Moreover, the news was first heard on a Lebanese TV channel close to the Syrian regime.
Yet, Tunisia believed the story of sexual jihad. Everybody here knows that the government has allowed thousands of people to fight jihad in Syria, so what would prevent young women to follow suit? The story about these girls feeds the creative imagination of the Tunisian people. This is not to mention that offering sexual services under the umbrella of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is an appealing story that sparks much excitement.
Nevertheless, the story of Lamia, a Tunisian girl, has gone viral in Tunisian media. It has been said that Lamia went to Syria, came back pregnant and had contracted HIV, and has been locked at her home in the city of Bizerte in the far north of Tunisia. Journalists went to Bizerte in search of Lamia, whom the whole world has come to know, but there is no trace of Lamia.
Women’s rights organizations are part of the political divide. They want the minister’s statements to be true, but there is no firm evidence to prove them. Thus, they remain silent, because speaking out in the case would be to the advantage of the Islamic Ennahda movement — their traditional opponent, which is accused of facilitating the trip of young Tunisians to Syria to perform jihad.
Ahmed, a Salafist preacher, stands In front of the Al-Fateh Mosque in Tunis. This is where Seifallah ben Hassine — known as Abu Iyad al-Tunisi — emir of the dissolved Ansar al-Sharia group, used to pray. “We take our wives along with us to Syria, or we marry Syrian women there. This is what we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said on the issue of sexual jihad.
So, why did the minister make these allegations? The viable explanation, in the absence of any evidence to this effect, is that the US report on the assassination of opposition member Mohamed al-Brahimi was to be brought up during the Constituent Assembly’s session. It has been asserted that the Ministry of Interior had been informed that Brahimi would be assassinated 11 days before his death and did not take any measures in this regard. Thus, to divert the attention away from this issue, Ben Jeddou has randomly brought up the story of “100 Tunisian women, who came back pregnant from Syria.”
Ennahda has embraced Ben Jeddou’s claims about sexual jihad to avoid a scandal that would make its government part of Brahimi’s assassination.
However, the scandal revolving around sexual jihad will soon be replaced with another scandal, if Ben Jeddou fails to find a way to deal with the issue. Yet, the story of the 100 Tunisian women who came back pregnant from Syria will not pass unnoticed, should it turn out to be fabricated.
Some observers expect that a few women will show up to uphold the minister’s claims. This is not to mention that Ben Jeddou has told a French media outlet that he has 15 documented cases only on this issue.
The flocking journalists, who have failed to find one case of the 100 cases that the minister talked about, started to dig into the source of the story. Preacher Mohammed al-Arifi — who some have said issued a sexual jihad fatwa — denied this.
According to some reporters who came to Tunisia, the number of words in the tweet that was attributed to Arifi exceed the number of words allowed in one tweet, which proves that it was a bogus claim. Moreover, the news was first heard on a Lebanese TV channel close to the Syrian regime.
Yet, Tunisia believed the story of sexual jihad. Everybody here knows that the government has allowed thousands of people to fight jihad in Syria, so what would prevent young women to follow suit? The story about these girls feeds the creative imagination of the Tunisian people. This is not to mention that offering sexual services under the umbrella of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is an appealing story that sparks much excitement.
