When terror hits our doors, what should we look for among our young adults and our children in our communities?

Terrorists exploit vulnerable groups and exploit them to achieve their goals. Our children and youth are part of these vulnerable groups that can be exploited to our disadvantage and used against us. What are we doing about our young people following reports of existential terror threats and how do we know that they are targeted for exploitation?

Number of recent reports on the proximity between terrorism and terrorism – terrorist activities – radicalization – extremist groups and their activities – bombings that we hear on the radio and that we watch on television in at least other parts of the world. world, according to what we have seen and heard, is more existential than ever. He is closer than ever to the opinion of an badyst a few years ago.

Our neighbors – Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and the security of the Atlantic Ocean and Togo – have all had an idea of ​​what the terrorist attacks look like. They saw in real life – not on television or radio – what terrorism is.

Perhaps we can now badume that it happened to them easily and so quickly because they took things for granted and did not plan them properly. This type of thinking is a fair argument, but unfortunately, it may not represent the full range of reasons for which they have been attacked – at least – from an academic point of view.

Terrorist groups as we know them are very sophisticated, sophisticated and very knowledgeable in the areas of security, diplomacy, intelligence and international relations. They know who to strike at any time to send a political statement to all parts of the world and show that they do not like certain positions of the country that they have chosen to attack, just for that their allies know that they are serious. their actions or intentions. This is what they usually do to frighten nations that take a certain stand against them and argue that they are strong on the ground.

Thank God, Ghanaians have not made political statements or decisions that may be considered prejudicial to another country, country or group of people. We continue to maintain our policy of international relations based on a non-aligned ideology, whereby we do not take sides in any country, but always try to draw the middle line.

Nevertheless, let us not take this for granted and badume that terrorist attacks will continue to be heard far from us in other countries and not on our soil, even if they come closer and especially when the new generation of groups Terrorists radicalize certain line where they see other religions apart from the one in which they believe and try to force them to pull their line.

This new breed of terrorist agents is infiltrating the nations on which they intend to rely in various clever ways by starting to radicalize young people so that they can carry out their harmful activities in the country without sometimes having the opportunity to themselves. to be physically present.

We must focus our efforts and energy on ensuring that these terrorist groups do not remain far from the planet and develop local radicals that can wreak havoc in the country in the future.

How are our young people and our children becoming radicalized?

There is no single pathway for radicalization in children and young adults. However, certain behavioral traits may indicate that your child or young adult has been exposed to radical influences.

Radicalization in young adults and children can occur over a long period. In some cases, it is triggered by a specific incident or news and can occur much more quickly. Sometimes there are obvious signs of radicalization, in other cases the changes are less obvious.

Adolescence is a time of great change and young people often want to be alone, easily get angry and be wary of authority.

This makes it difficult to distinguish between the normal behavior of a teenager and his attitude indicating that your child may have been exposed to radical influences.

The behaviors listed below are meant to guide the country and parents to help us identify a possible radicalization of young people and young children.

The appearances of your child or teenager start to become suspicious. It is either that he behaves horribly, or that he begins to consider that others do not conform to a certain religious doctrine established by dressing, eating, talking or even walking.

Become more and more argumentative. That is to say, pbadionately discusses religion as if there was no tomorrow.

Refuse to listen to different points of view when discussing religious matters.

Refusal to engage with children or other young people from different religious backgrounds.

Become abusive towards young adults or children of different religious backgrounds from what they believe

Adopting conspiracy theories has influenced what he has heard from other people, especially extremist groups he sees as mentors. Shout praises to such people even when they are killed for the wrong reasons.

Feeling persecuted and thinking that the religion he believed in is being attacked by other religions, he feels compelled to take on the challenge of fighting a certain path to defend his religion.

Change friends and appearance; that is to say, all of a sudden, his way of dressing, as well as his friends, change in ways that can be said to be conservative in nature.

Stand out from old friends. He thinks his old friends do not practice or believe in what he believes in or may not do it right. He must abandon them and create new ones.

Do not do the things that they liked anymore. He or she stops suddenly to sing, dance, listen to music, hang out with friends, etc. badigning reasons such that all these things send them to hell.

Conversion to a new religion. Generally, people who quickly adopt radicalization are converts. They seem to be in the majority because, generally, when they accept the new religion, they tend to believe everything that is said to them, including those who say that they should die to reach paradise.

Be secretive and unwilling to discuss their whereabouts. When young people become radicalized, they badume a certain status which is generally transmitted to them by their masters: they form a particular group of people who do not need to reveal everything about the world. They are told to actually see the world filled with evil that deserves to be cleaned before it is perfect.

Friendly to extremist ideologies and groups. As I said earlier, young people in the process of radicalization share the honor of their masters who commit successful attacks and are talked about in the media. In the same vein, they express their sorrow and sorrow every time they hear new terrorist murders.

Our youth, like many adult adults, also share the virtual space to search for information, make new friends, buy and sell, advertise, search for new dates or even, in some cases, engage in cyber fraud to make a living.

Unfortunately, this same cyber-space where we, our young people and ourselves, are going to have fun and do all kinds of things, is also inhabited by people who can be described as dangerous people.

They are dangerous people, because they are representatives of terrorist groups who surf the Internet every day to recruit vulnerable young people to teach them their ideology, to radicalize them and to use them to destroy others and defend their interests through the Internet. world.

Because cyberspace is inhabited only by us and our young people, and in particular, while it is extremely difficult to monitor what our young people are doing in this space, it is necessary to look after these basic elements for us. Help to spot quickly Tell the police what steps to take immediately as you see them stand up ugly among our youth. They include but are not limited to;

Change identity online. The more we observe that some people, especially on social media, who are our friends with our young people, change and carry different names, images, etc. while interacting with them, our response should be quick.

These people usually follow the same line of conversation as our youth, but continue to change their identities through names and images.

Having more of an online identity is one strategy that they use to beat their parents and guardians so that they do not easily discover it. This strategy is pbaded on to our young people once these online terrorist recruiters have managed to win their trust and win on their side. So, once you start to realize that your child or adolescent you know can not keep an online identity for a while, you should start asking questions about how it works.

When you start to see that your child or teenager you know is spending a lot of time online or on the phone while he was barely doing it, he should then trigger your senses, as he may have found someone who is not sure. One gives him all the attention and maybe even the funding because spending time on social media for longer periods of time involves some financial burden.

When your child or young person starts talking about more and more radical or extremist elements, know that he has started to access online content about him and that he is likely to be ############################################################################### Be in advanced communication with them.

In many cases, these young people will keep as many secrets as possible because their masters will ask them, but they will probably share the idea of ​​joining or attempting to join an extremist organization with one or two of their friends trying to see them. They can accompany them. It is therefore important that as parents, you keep a line of open communication between you and your children's friends, so that whenever they share such ideas, they feel free to you. inform quickly and without hesitation so that you can take the necessary measures.

You know your child better than anyone, so trust your instinct if something goes wrong. You are in the best position to notice if they are doing wrong. Do not wait for something to happen then you will start fighting at that moment, it would have been too late.

Mohammed Abdul Hanan EL-Saeed
Police Headquarters
Accra
0244087295
[email protected]The author is a student in conflict, peace and security at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center.