'Women should be married by the age of 9, should remain veiled and should not be educated beyond the age of 15'.
This grim picture is a reality within the Islamic State-controlled territories in Iraq and Syria, and was revealed by a manifesto released by ISIS' women wing, the Al-Khanssaa Brigade, in January.
Translated to English by Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank, the manifesto reveals the 'mind-set of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women who willingly join ISIS ranks' and what they believe is the ideal life for women under the reign of the hard-liner Islamist group.
The manifesto 'Women of the Islamic State' opens with a scathing critique of Western culture, especially, the 'Western program for women', a phrase meant to suggest feminism.
The report states that the blurring line between the two sexes is 'rending society apart' and derides men outside the Islamic State as being 'emasculated' and forcing women out of their 'true roles'.
"If men were men then women would be women," the document says, as per its translated version.
It suggests that Western women are 'confused and complacent', and that they are unable to fulfil their responsibilities of motherhood and running the household.
The document, compiled by the women's wing of the terror group, also suggests regressive ideas such as – 'men are in charge of women', and that a Muslim man is characterised by his "sympathy towards the weak and hence should rise above harming women".
While the manifesto surprisingly promotes education for women, it immediately goes on to say that girls must be educated only after they turn seven and their learning must end by the time they are fifteen, or 'sometimes a little earlier'.
In a disturbing comment, the report also suggests that girls are ready to take on household roles after marriage when they are as young as nine.
"It is considered legitimate for a girl to be married at the age of nine. Most pure girls will be married by sixteen or seventeen, while they are still young and active. Young men will not be more than twenty years old in those glorious generations," the report says.
The report then goes on to state that from the point of marriage, a woman's "appointed role [is to] remain hidden and veiled and maintain society from behind" and that there is "no responsibility greater for her than that of being a wife to her husband".
The Al-Khanssaa Brigade has also listed out the limited circumstances when a woman is allowed to step out of her house - if she is going to study theology; if she is a women's doctor or teacher; if it has been ruled by fatwa that she must fight, engage in jihad because the situation has become desperate, "as the women of Iraq and Chechnya did, with great sadness".
The document then highlights the ideal life for women with case studies from the ISIS strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
The Quiliam analysis suggests that the manifesto was aimed at a target audience of women mainly in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, even imploring women to leave the nation and migrate to the Islamic State.
