The children (and wives) of foreign ISIS fighters 75 individuals lured to the Middle East and forced to join ISIS against their will.24 The proactive role of women and girls has been attributed to a shift in ISIS position on the status of women in combat roles, occurred between 2015 and 2018. It was the group itself − weakened by the armed attacks and the increasing military defeats − that allowed women to perform more active roles by publicly stating that ‘it is obligatory for women to take up arms’.25 As is well known, since the establishment of the Caliphate, women became members of the Al-Khansaa brigade and have been actively involved in propaganda and recruitment, grooming other women and girls online. Nowadays, it is also ascertained that women in the ranks of ISIS have often received sniper training, carried Kalashnikovs and worn suicide vests.26 Girls recruited into ISIS have also been trained in how best to support husbands to whom they may have been married from the age of nine. While they may have not engaged in combat roles, girls have been generally referred to as ‘sisters of the Islamic State’ alongside adult females.27 The recent insights into women's increasing involvement in recruitment and other activities have resulted in changing practices in several different countries of origin, also across Europe. A study by the Egmont Institute − featuring analyses of policies for returnees in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands by prominent counter-terrorism scholars − confirmed that in these three EU Member States ‘[u]ntil recently, women were treated with more clemency, but this has now come to an end’.28 For example in Germany for several years male FTFs were automatically subject to criminal investigation upon arrival, whereas evidentiary thresholds were much higher in order for women to be investigated upon return. However, starting from December 2017, Germany’s federal judicial authorities announced a tougher judicial stance on female returnees to remove gender discrepancies in investigation and prosecution practices.29 This entails that, upon their return or after their repatriation, female 24 ibid 52-53. Cook, Vale, ‘From Daesh to “Diaspora”’ (n 8) 28. 26 AJ Gielen, ‘Exit Programmes for Female Jihadists: A Proposal for Conducting Realistic Evaluation of the Dutch Approach’ (2018) 33 Intl Sociology 454, 455-456. 27 EPRS, ‘The Return of Foreign Fighters’ (n 21) 37. 28 Renard and Coolsaet (n 8) 4. 29 EPRS, ‘The Return of Foreign Fighters’ (n 21) 46. 25