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'Sexual Jihad' In Syria Cause Rise In Pregnancy Among Tunisian Women, Lawmaker Says

Tunisians Getting Pregnant Through 'Sexual Jihad,' Lawmaker Says
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News Editor, The Huffington Post

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A number of Tunisian women have traveled to Syria to have sex with rebel fighters, a senior Tunisian politician said Thursday. The practice is known as "sexual jihad."

The women "are swapped between 20, 30, 100 rebels," Interior Minister Lotfi Bin Jeddo told an assembly of Tunisian lawmakers, according to Al Arabiya. "We are doing nothing and standing idle."

"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah,' they come home pregnant," he said, according to Agence France-Presse. (Jihad al-nikah is an Arabic phrase meaning "sexual holy war," AFP explains.)

Jeddo did not specify how many Tunisian women have traveled to the embattled Muslim country.

A fatwa, or an Islamic religious ruling, was reportedly issued last spring, calling for women to travel to Syria to provide intimacy to jihadi fighters there, Al Monitor reported at the time. Although some said reports of the fatwa were false, Tunisia's minister of religious affairs spoke out against the order, saying Tunisian women and girls were not required to obey it.

Why some women would obey such an order is less clear, but one expert suggests they may believe it's an act of devotion.

"Muslim women prostituting themselves in this case is being considered a legitimate jihad because such women are making sacrifices—their chastity, their dignity—in order to help apparently sexually-frustrated jihadis better focus on the war to empower Islam in Syria," writes author and Islam expert Raymond Ibrahim for The Investigative Project On Terrorism, a nonprofit research organization that studies jihad.

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Before You Go

Veil Bans Around The World
Britain(01 of12)
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There are no laws restricting the use of Muslim veils. But a London judge this week ordered a defendant on trial for witness intimidation to remove her niqab when testifying, so that he and the jury could see her as she answered questions. Judge Peter Murphy also called on the government to draft a law making it illegal for witnesses to cover their faces in court.A Muslim woman and girl sit in the shade in Burgess Park during an Eid celebration fun fair on August 8, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
France(02 of12)
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In April 2011, France became the first European nation to ban the public use of veils, both face-covering niqabs and full-body burqas. A 2004 law also bans Muslim hijab headscarves and other prominent religious symbols from being worn in state schools, but does not apply in universities.A police woman carries out an identity check of a 'wife' wearing a full-face veil of French owner of a chain of butcher’s and grocery shops, Lies Hebbadj (C), outside the court of justice where she was to appear because she violated France's niqab ban, on November 21, 2011 in the French western city of Nantes. (FRANK PERRY/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Belgium(03 of12)
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Belgium followed France in banning the wearing of niqabs and burqas in public in July 2011.Stephanie Djato, a woman who was arrested yesterday for wearing a niqab and assaulting a police officer, in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek (Molenbeek-Saint-Jean), and a spokesman for the radical Islamist organization 'Sharia4Belgium' show a Niqab veil during a press conference, in Brussels, on June 1, 2012. (NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Italy(04 of12)
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Since the 1970s Italian law has forbidden the covering of the face in public. Governments have repeatedly discussed extending the provision to impose special penalties on Muslim face coverings, but such laws are not enforced nationally.A young boy looks at a board on April 30, 2012 in Varallo, mentioning that the Burqa, Niqab and Burqini are not allowed in this city since January 2010, by communal decision. (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Germany(05 of12)
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Has no national law restricting the wearing of Muslim veils, but the federal constitutional court in 2003 ruled that state governments could impose such restrictions on school teachers. Half of Germany's 16 state governments today outlaw the wearing of both headscarves and veils by teachers. In 2011, Hesse became the first German state to forbid all civil servants to wear Muslim headscarves or veils.A veiled woman takes a photo of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade in Munich, Southern Germany, on July 14, 2012. (PETER KNEFFEL/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Spain(06 of12)
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Since 2010 more than a dozen cities passed laws outlawing the wearing of niqabs and burqas in public. But Spain's Supreme Court in February 2013 threw out these ordinances as unconstitutional.A woman wearing a hijab walks past Spanish police following a raid on a house of suspected members of an radical Islamic group in Malaga, southern Spain, 19 December 2005. (JOSE LUIS ROCA/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Netherlands(07 of12)
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The country's previous center-right coalition had planned to ban the public donning of niqabs and burqas, but that bill was shelved in 2012 when the government collapsed and was replaced by left-wing rivals.A woman wearing a full-face veil known as niqab, pushes a baby stroller on snow-covered streets in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Monday Jan. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) (credit:AP)
Canada(08 of12)
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In 2011 the government made it illegal for women to wear face-covering garments at citizenship ceremonies, because the judge must be able to see each person's face reciting their oath. In 2012 the Supreme Court issued a rare split decision on whether women could cover their faces on the witness stand; four judges said it depended on the circumstances, two said witnesses should never cover their face, and one said a Muslim witness should never be ordered to remove her veil. The provincial government of French-speaking Quebec this year has proposed a law that would outlaw all religious regalia – including Muslim scarves and veils, turbans, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crucifixes – from state buildings.Demonstrators take part in a protest against Quebec's proposed "values charter" in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Saturday Sept. 14, 2013. The separatist Parti Quebecois government said the proposed law would forbid government workers from wearing religious headwear such as hijabs, turbans, and kippas and will be introduced for debate later in the year. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz) (credit:AP)
United States(09 of12)
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America has no laws restricting the use of veils or headscarves because it conflicts with constitutional rights to freedom of speech. In 2009 President Barack Obama said in a Cairo speech directed at a Muslim audience that Western nations should "avoid dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear" because it reflected innate hostility to Islam.Women dressed in American flag burkas walk through the crowd during a rally on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Building on September 12, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Turkey(10 of12)
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Islamic-style headscarves and full robes are banned in schools and in government offices. A similar ban for university students was relaxed.Turkish demonstrators supporting ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi chant slogans during a pro-Morsi demonstration on July 14, 2013 in Istanbul. (OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
Tunisia(11 of12)
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Headscarves and full veils are banned from public buildings and schools. After the longtime president was ousted in a popular revolt in 2011, some Islamist protesters have demanded that the rules be relaxed.In this Jan.18, 2012 file photo, the four ultraconservative hunger striking women students of the Manouba Arts and Humanities raise one finger to mean "There is only one god" in an apartment outside the university, near Tunis, as classes and exams at Manouba University's humanities department have been put on hold by a sit-in demanding students be allowed to attend class in the conservative face veil, known as the Niqab. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi, File) (credit:AP)
Syria(12 of12)
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In 2011, Syrian President Bashar Assad reversed a decision that bans teachers from wearing the niqab. The move was seen as an attempt to appease religious conservatives in the Sunni majority as he faced down the uprising challenging his authoritarian rule. The government had banned the veil in July 2010.A female rebel fighter patrols a street in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on May 12, 2013. (AFP/Getty Images) (credit:Getty Images)
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