In recent years, women’s support for, and participation in, ISIL’s activities has generated growing attention. Women’s radicalization to political violence and terrorism is nothing new per se, but ISIL’s success in recruiting women has been remarkable in several ways, including in terms of the sheer numbers; the geographical diversity of the women; and the new policy challenges that have emerged as a result of this unprecedented level of mobilization. The Security Council has responded to these developments by introducing a range of provisions that require Member States to consider the different roles played by women, analyse the drivers of their radicalization, and devise gender-sensitive counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism (CVE) responses which take into account the impact on women’s human rights.3 With regard to FTFs, including returning and relocating FTFs and their families, the Council specifically. The present report seeks to provide counter-terrorism policymakers, practitioners and experts with an analysis of the latest research into some of the challenges presented by one such trend: the gender dimensions of the response to returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs). Council resolutions 2242 (2015) and 2395 (2017) task CTED to gather gender-sensitive research on the drivers of radicalization to terrorism for women and on the impacts of counter-terrorism strategies on women’s human rights and women’s organizations. The report primarily draws on the work of academia and think tanks (particularly members of CTED’s Global Research Network (GRN)),2 but also includes information from international, regional and subregional organizations.