Boko Haram suicide bombers are women, children-Study

Women and children are mostly being used by Boko Haram members for suicide bombing, says a study.

According to the study, carried out by researchers at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and Yale University, majority of suicide bombers that the terrorist group, Boko Haram, uses to kill innocent civilians are women and children.

Analyzing 434 suicide bombings carried by the group since 2011, found that at least 244 of the gender identifiable 338 attacks were carried out by women.

The daily mail report states that in just 2017 alone, Boko Haram had already sent 80 women to their deaths.

Following the abduction of 276 female students aged 16 through 18 from their school dorms April 2014 - which sparked the global 'Bring Back Our Girls' campaign - the ISIS-affiliated insurgent group's use of women bombers increased. Almost immediately after the Chibok kidnappings, Boko Haram's use of women suicide bombers skyrocketed,' said Jason Warner, assistant professor at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, to CNN.
Warner added that the report suggests 'that Boko Haram started using women suicide bombers after it realized the potency that gender and youth offer in raising its global profile after the Chibok kidnappings.'

The daily mail report also states that Boko Haram is at the forefront of normalizing the use of children as suicide bombers.

Warner said: “Boko Haram has shattered demographic stereotypes as to what a suicide bomber looks like. It is the first terrorist group in history to use more women suicide bombers than men, and is at the vanguard of using children as suicide bombers.”

The study further details how of the 134 suicide bombers with determinable ages, 60 percent were teenagers or children, and the youngest, seven years old.

Quoting the researchers, daily mail said that Boko Haram has utilized girls at a rate of four times more than boys, according to the study. 

Yale-based researcher Ellen Chapin told CNN that Boko Haram 'deployed 42 teenage girls and 23 little girls (12 years old and under), compared to 11 teenage boys and five little boys.'

The militant group is responsible for an estimated 35,000 deaths over the last six years.

Warner added that a 'vast majority' of their victims are “innocent, everyday Nigerians, Cameroonians, Nigerians and Chadians, not government or military personnel.”

He added: “The loss of life caused by Boko Haram - and the war against the group - has been staggering.”

Warner added that the conflict has forced more than two million Nigerians to flee their homes, with 'profound humanitarian consequences.'

According to the report's authors, women and children are less likely to be searched, making them easier targets.

They can hide bombs a lot easier in plain sight and men sometimes dress as women to be afforded the 'luxury' and slip through security easily. 

The researchers also found that women and children are far more easily swayed by Boko Haram than men, and they are far more expendable.

A former insurgent told researchers that women 'are cheap and they are angry for the most part,' and also stated that 'using women allows you to save your men.'

One of the lead authors of the report, Hilary Matfess, told CNN that the choice to use suicide bombers 'upends social norms about women and children, which make them effective beyond merely the lives that they claim when they are detonated.'

But there is mistrust growing caused by the use of women and children in such capacity and that is believed to 'undermine social cohesion and will make the process of post-conflict reconciliation and redevelopment all the more difficult,' she added.

With the area in which Boko Haram is based in northeastern Nigeria being extremely dangerous, fieldwork for the study was limited.  

'Media reports often did not report full details of the bombings,' added Warner. 

'Even getting approximate ages of bombers proved to be very difficult ... and media accounts often did not even report the gender of the bombers.

'In instances where age or gender was not reported, it might be reasonable to expect that the bomber was an adult man, and thus, age and gender were not newsworthy enough to report at all.'

Matfess conducted face-to-face interviews with former insurgents, victims and family members affected by Boko Haram for most of her time on the field. 

She added that the group also uses improvised explosives that are carried out by coerced and often unwilling victims known as person-borne IEDs, or PBIEDs.

'Children and those forced into serving as bombers cannot be considered "suicide bombers" and the counter-terrorism measures against PBIED attacks can differ than the tactics deployed against an autonomous, dedicated suicide bomber,' she said.

The researcher added that a town hit hard by the bombings, Maiduguri, has begun a campaign to bring awareness to women and child bombers, finding it easier to identify them.  

'The policy is well intention, [but] it risks stigmatizing the bombers, many -- though not all -- of whom have been coerced or forced into serving in this role,' she said.

'The widespread suspicion of women and girls that these attacks have resulted in already puts women and girls at a disadvantage in the community.'