PESHAWAR: An early warning response mechanism identifies and stops violence before it occurs; it guides policy decisions, protects rights and reduces reliance on kinetic options. An EWRM for prevention of violent extremism (PVE) includes processes to identify early radicalisation signs, enabling intervention before violence occurs. It involves collaboration of the community, law enforcers, educators, civil society and families but faces ethical, legal and operational hurdles.
EWRM reduces human, social and economic costs linked to VE, identifies trends and resource allocation and designs responses in local contexts. It improves resilience and trust in communities, which report extremist narratives, and supports reintegration and rehabilitation. It is cost-effective compared to post-crisis responses and stresses non-violent preventive strategies like dialogue, awareness, economic and psychosocial support, and safeguarding rights. Early community-based interventions minimise the need for surveillance that may violate civil liberties.
Engaging youth in PVE is crucial as extremists recruit youth via social media. If empowered, the youth can be peace agents. Their inclusion strengthens PVE by promoting alternative narratives to extremism. Through education, employment and civic engagement, community resilience can be built. By bridging gaps, radicalisation can be countered. Youth-led digital monitoring and safe dialogue spaces can strengthen EWRM. Youth resilience in PVE can be enhanced through critical thinking, peace education, skill development, media literacy, gender equality and tolerance. Youth participation in local governance and peacebuilding boosts political inclusion. Digital engagement can increase awareness and mobilisation against hate speech.
Instant responses — counselling, positive identity-building, vocational support — can stop youth from taking extremist paths. Monitoring/ feedback of EWRM enable learning from past interventions. Parents and teachers often notice the first behavioural/ ideological shift. In EWRM, teachers interacting daily with youth can detect/ respond to changes like withdrawal, aggression and sudden ideological rigidity. They can create a safe space for dialogue and promote critical thinking and play a referral role. But if 26 million children are out of school and many teachers aren’t trained, how can they be effective? With a 60 per cent literacy rate, how can parental capacity improve? As front-line observers of children, parents can monitor shifts like sudden rejection of norms and changes in online activities. They can provide emotional support while reporting concerns responsibly to avoid stigma. Teacher-parent collaboration can strengthen PVE efforts. Regular communication and joint awareness programmes build understanding of radicalisation signs and referral pathways. Instant responses can save youth from extremism.
Teachers and student leaders in universities are positioned to detect early changes such as intolerance, and hate speech. Student leaders can be trained to identify and respond to such early signs. At university, students may face identity crises and be targeted by extremist recruiters. So, campuses are both vulnerable spots and platforms for peacebuilding.
EWRM helps formulate policies and codes of conduct for campuses that forbid hate speech, explain reporting procedures and refer students to support systems. Linked to national and community-level EWRM, campuses can be powerful PVE allies. But capacity constraints of faculty and weak reporting systems hinder success.
Local governments build trust and are bridges for communities. LG members may refer individuals for mental health and deradicalisation services and educate workers to spot signs of radicalisation. Legal, capacity and resource constraints, operational and coordination gaps, and community mistrust mar LGs’ capacity to support EWRM and localise national PVE policies. Such issues need careful handling as ambiguous behaviour can lead to mislabelling individuals — isolation, anger, etc are not always radicalisation signs. Understanding such behaviour requires access to online activity, financial records, etc — a hard task. Privacy concerns also hinder EWRM effectiveness. Adaptability is another challenge as extremists change tactics. Separating hate speech from protected speech is also hard.
To ensure EWRM, states must implement locally drafted action plans aligned with UNSCR 1325 (women, peace and security) and UNSCR 2250 (youth, peace, and security), encourage community policing and ensure inclusive access to justice. With transparency, clear EWRM procedures and respect for rights, discrimination and privacy risks can be addressed.
The writer is a published author. The article is based on a talk at a seminar on ‘Gender-Responsive Early Warning and Response Mechanisms’ organised by PAIMAN Alumni Trust.
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