00:00 As we are increasingly turning our attention to the challenges of fragility,
00:05 one of the most important issues that
00:08 we're looking at in the social development family
00:10 is that of how to prevent violent extremism amongst the youth.
00:15 Today I'm really glad to have with me Gloria La Cava,
00:18 who's been doing some very innovative work on this topic.
00:21 She's a senior social scientist in the
00:24 ecoregion in the bank,
00:26 and she's gonna share with us some of her work in Tajikistan.
00:29 Gloria,
00:30 welcome to our video blog series.
00:32 It's really a pleasure to have you here.
00:34 Thank you for having me.
00:36 The first question I'd like to ask you,
00:37 so tell me a little bit about the study that
00:39 you did that shed some light on the challenges facing
00:43 youth and violent extremism in Tajikistan.
00:46 So the study was actually a qualitative study,
00:49 and,
00:50 uh,
00:50 it was done
00:51 in
00:52 early 2018.
00:55 Uh,
00:55 it covered 330 respondents including.
00:59 Youth
01:01 in different communities,
01:02 women,
01:03 religious leaders,
01:04 other leaders,
01:05 formal and informal.
01:07 The key questions actually were ranged from general questions
01:11 related to the community and the issues that these
01:14 different groups perceived,
01:16 as well as comment on the presence of violent extremist groups and
01:20 the effect they had on the communities and certain groups.
01:24 So we were able through that to get at some of
01:26 the vulnerabilities and the specifics of this dynamics of radicalization.
01:31 Interesting.
01:32 Tell me,
01:33 what were some of the key findings of the study?
01:35 What did you conclude?
01:36 So the key findings were that there are clearly
01:39 some groups that are more vulnerable than others,
01:41 and those include
01:43 young people,
01:44 young men in particularly,
01:45 but also young women returning migrants.
01:48 Migration immigration bans so that they are kind
01:52 of cut off from access to economic opportunities,
01:55 particularly the the border with Afghanistan came out as a very,
01:59 very vulnerable.
02:01 So I understand you found out something about what was a
02:04 key driver was having to do with opportunities lack of but also
02:09 something that you're calling a radical mindset.
02:11 Can you explain to us a little bit more.
02:13 About that,
02:14 yes,
02:14 so we found that poverty or grievances against local governments per se could not
02:21 justify the
02:26 the adoption of certain extremist views
02:29 and the extremist views being
02:33 those that set one group against another that denies.
02:37 Within the community of practitioners of a certain religion,
02:42 the groups that are more tolerant,
02:45 that are considered a threat,
02:47 and
02:47 issues related to the subordinate role of women and the acceptance of violence
02:53 as a social norm,
02:54 essentially.
02:55 So
02:55 this mindset was,
02:58 we found that was propagated very specifically by
03:01 individuals,
03:02 groups,
03:02 and so this was.
03:04 The community was very conscious about this presence and they were not supportive.
03:10 It's interesting,
03:10 so that there was not only a lack of opportunity that drove this,
03:13 but also
03:14 this change in the mindset which was leading to more exclusion and intolerance and
03:20 behavior.
03:21 Interesting.
03:21 Tell us about some of the solutions that you identified
03:24 or that came out that were suggested by the respondents.
03:28 So the solutions were interestingly very much focused at the local level.
03:32 Radicalization,
03:33 violent extremity is a very local,
03:35 uh,
03:36 has local dynamics,
03:37 and it changes from one village to another.
03:40 So
03:41 to do to.
03:42 To address that,
03:43 they recommended working with local leaders,
03:46 teachers,
03:47 parents,
03:49 both mothers and fathers,
03:51 and the youth themselves,
03:52 so it's not just targeting youth,
03:54 that's not what they
03:56 and in so doing,
03:57 combining
03:59 extracurricular activities with this
04:01 psychology.
04:02 Based training and so it's really exciting is that you were able to link some of these
04:07 recommendations and integrate them into your project.
04:09 Can you say a little bit about how you scale them up in your project and uh yes,
04:14 so,
04:14 um,
04:15 we,
04:15 um,
04:16 the team that,
04:17 uh,
04:17 that I'm part of that uh prepared the socioeconomic,
04:20 uh,
04:21 resilience strengthening project.
04:23 Worked
04:26 in a way to include
04:28 violence prevention measures to the more
04:31 classic community driven development approaches that
04:35 are involved in more infrastructure development and so on.
04:39 So on the violence prevention,
04:43 we were able to incorporate
04:46 in those in those communities that we identified as the most vulnerable.
04:51 Elements like this community,
04:54 this psychology-based training and psychosocial support,
04:59 together with
05:01 aspects like livelihoods and entrepreneurship training,
05:05 so it is like an overall approach that touches on different aspects because
05:11 it would have been difficult to just do one thing
05:13 and it wouldn't have been effective and it's beyond our.
05:16 Sort of
05:17 broader mandate because we want to have greater
05:19 impact through development approaches and and prevention.
05:22 Well,
05:22 thank you.
05:23 This is really an interesting area,
05:24 an area where I hope we can build up
05:26 our expertise and our knowledge and engage further,
05:29 and this is a great example.
05:30 Thank you for sharing it with us.
05:31 Thank you.
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