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View all search resultsRadicalization of the female worker
In Asia women are now reportedly also tempted to embrace terrorist causes for reasons of psychological displacement, searching for a sense of “place” in dominant power structures.
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Abundant lights: Female workers prepare red candles for packaging. (JP/ Donny Fernando)
M
ore often than not, the suicide bomber was a male who volunteered to end his life so that his family could obtain permanent welfare benefits from a self-proclaimed liberation organization. Just as plausible was the male who lost his moral and religious compass amidst a worldly global economy and chanced upon the prospect of providential redemption through an act of “selfless terrorism” against “infidels.”
However, in Asia women are now reportedly also tempted to embrace terrorist causes for reasons of psychological displacement, searching for a sense of “place” in dominant power structures. The case reported in the New York Times of Ayu (not her real name) in Hong Kong and the one of Syaikhah Izzah Zahrah Al Ansari in Singapore showcase the very real possibility that women are equally salient targets for radicalization by the likes of Islamic Satets (IS), Al-Qaeda and Jamaah Islamiyah.
Most recently, Indonesia sent to jail its first would-be female suicide bomber, Dian Yulia Novi. These women were lured by online propaganda primarily because the latter preyed upon their very fears as a marginalized individual. The significant point is the seeming irrelevance of gender.
The feminization of migrant labor has come about as a result of a need to fulfill “women’s work” in receiving countries, especially in household work and caring for the aged, disabled and the very young. The measly costing of women’s “unpaid work” and the outsourcing of such “work” bring about issues of the low incomes earned by migrant domestic workers, and the value of women’s work in the homes.
