A/HRC/43/46 of armed conflict and the relationship between violent and hegemonic masculinities and the production of violent extremism. 85 40. There has been a distinct upsurge in policy and programming addressing the gender dimension of violent extremism, 86 yet there has been no systematic monitoring and evaluation assessing the merits, impacts or human rights compliance of such programming. Regrettably, prioritizing women as both subjects and conduits of the prevention and countering of violent extremism has rarely been premised on their rights to nondiscrimination and equality, but rather relies on the strategic rationale that it leads to a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of violent extremism and more localized and credible strategies for countering terrorism, a form of commodification which deeply concerns the Special Rapporteur. 87 The distinct focus on using women as a means of improving counter-terrorism efforts runs the risk of agenda-hijacking, whereby a narrow emphasis on “women” distracts attention from the wider structural realities that produce gender inequality, exclusion and violence. 41. It is all the more ethically problematic when programming aimed at the prevention and countering of violent extremism is advertised as being for the empowerment of women or as being skills training that benefits women, hiding the security rationale driving the engagement and ultimately making any credible evaluation valueless. Equally, there is a distinctly patriarchal element to making women the gatekeepers to the men and boys in their communities – as mothers, wives and sisters – through programming and policies aimed at the prevention and countering of violent extremism. A number of commentators have underscored the risks faced by women and girls when they are made the frontline recipients of such policies, particularly when such policy imperatives are viewed as the foreign policy preferences of powerful States. Increasingly, in highly complex, socially conservative and unstable environments, women are placed in the unenviable position of the frontline delivery of efforts aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism. Such intrusions are now also regularly found in the most intimate parts of life – doctors’ offices, classrooms, family courts, mother and baby centres and family life – formally constituting violations of the rights to privacy, family life, education and health, protected by international law. 88 Women-led non-governmental organizations report that funding sources in multiple fragile and conflictaffected environments are tied to programming related to preventing and countering violent extremism. Compromising the most fundamental rights of women and girls (life and security) should not be a placeholder for broader economic, social and political reform in marginal communities that are at risk of producing terrorism. 89 B. Civil society 42. Addressing the pitfalls of preventing and countering violent extremism involves reflecting on the challenges faced by civil society in counter-terrorism contexts. In advancing the promotion and protection of human rights globally, civil society participation paves the way for more effective prevention strategies, through both pathways of resistance to terrorist action and mitigation of the attraction of radical or violent extremism. Civil society engagement brings consistent attention to upholding the rule of law, engaging human rightsbased values, protecting the most vulnerable and marginalized and speaking on behalf of the targets of counter-terrorism measures, the individuals and groups who are sometimes reviled and excluded because of their views or the perceived threat that they pose, but whose 85 86 87 88 89 Melissa Johnston and Jacqui True, “Misogyny and violent extremism: implications for preventing violent extremism”, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), policy brief, 2019. Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Jayne Huckerby, Gendering counterterrorism: how to and how not to (part II), Just Security, 3 May 2018. Jayne Huckerby, “Feminism and international law in the post-9/11 era”, Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 39, No. 3. Fatima Ahdash, “The interaction between family law and counter-terrorism: a critical examination of the radicalization cases in the family courts” Child and Family Law Quarterly, vol. 30. Katherine E. Brown, Gender, Religion, Extremism: Finding Women in Anti-Radicalization, (Oxford University Press, 2020). 15