More than 31,000 Pregnant women under ISIS rule in Iraq and Syria

More than 31,000 women living in the Islamic State militant group’s (ISIS) self-styled “caliphate” are currently pregnant, according to a new report on children living under ISIS rule in Iraq and Syria.

U.K-based counter-extremism thinktank the Quilliam Foundation revealed the figure in a report, entitled Children of Islamic State, released on Monday. The estimate of pregnant women under ISIS rule was given by an intelligence official to the President of Quilliam, Noman Benotman.

“That 31,000 women are pregnant in the ‘caliphate’ is very worrying indeed,” says Nikita Malik, senior researcher at Quilliam. “It is imperative that the international community takes a proactive rather than a reactive approach when focusing on these children.”

Other findings in the report include that there are more than 50 children from Britain that are growing up on jihad in the “caliphate,” children are taught a rigid ISIS curriculum where drawing and philosophy is forbidden and the youth are forced to recite Quranic verses before “Jihadist Training” camp.

Girls, known as “pearls of the caliphate,” are not permitted inside ISIS schools, are forced to stay at home and taught from an early age to look after their husbands. Many of the children living under ISIS rule are abducted into joining the group or pressured using fear tactics. They are then taught to propagate the group’s beliefs and injected with extremist values from birth.