Solving the problem requires understanding the multiple roles that women play in enabling kidnapping economies.

Kidnapping for ransom has become one of Chad’s most visible forms of organised crime, especially in the southern border area with Cameroon and the Central African Republic (dubbed the ‘triangle of death’).

What began as opportunistic local banditry in northern Chad in the 1990s has evolved into a nationwide economy of crime and conflict. The problem is shaped by Darfur-linked rebel and smuggling groups in the east, criminal networks, and cross-border raids in the south.

Despite several regional and cross-border differences, one commonality is that men are often seen as perpetrators, and women as victims.

Experts recently interviewed by Institute for Security Studies (ISS) researchers in Chad described women as either direct victims of kidnapping, or indirect victims working to rescue their kidnapped husbands or children and mobilising ransom payments.

This narrow view not only erases women’s multiple roles – as informants, enablers, clients and even direct perpetrators – but also blinds policy to the deeper gendered dynamics that enable kidnapping economies.

The question is not whether women matter in this landscape, but how. Ignoring women’s roles distorts how kidnapping is understood, painting a false picture and weakening state and community responses. Analysis on the issue must reckon with the intersections of gender, crime, violence, extremism and conflict in Chad and Central Africa.

Women and girls are indeed kidnapped, albeit in lesser numbers than men and boys. They are sometimes raped in captivity, though it is not yet clear how widespread this is.

In broader sexual economies linked to various conflicts in Chad and its borderlands, female bodies are frequently commodified for sexual exploitation and care labour. The violent extremism crisis in western Chad has made women widows and disrupted their livelihoods, forcing many into coping mechanisms like survival sex.

But this (victim) narrative is incomplete. It contrasts with emerging evidence of female kidnappers in Chad and north Cameroon, whose roles mirror those of women in violent extremist and criminal groups. These roles include recruitment, logistics, gunrunning and surveillance.

In Chad, analysts told ISS, some female kidnappers have been arrested and imprisoned. Women act as informants, helping perpetrators single out potential targets and supplying personal information that enables abductions. Women also shelter male kidnappers in their homes to deflect community suspicions. This happens under the guise of transactional sexual relationships with male kidnappers, who use ransom payments and financial power to buy access.

Women are also the clients of kidnappers. One analyst told ISS that a woman in the Mayo-Kebbi Ouest region arranged the abduction of her brother to punish him for accusing her of witchcraft. Another in Gomadji requested her wealthier brother’s kidnapping out of jealousy and to ruin him financially.

In a more complex case, a traditional healer was arrested in Moundou for exploiting a child abduction. She claimed she could find the child in exchange for about XAF2-million.

Beyond their complicity in the kidnapping economy, Chadian women have led several public protests against these and other instances of violence against women, demanding state accountability and community protection. Little is known of their involvement as intermediaries and ransom negotiators, underlining the need for more gender-focused research.

Lack of knowledge and policy blindness to women’s roles persist partly because local gender norms discourage women’s involvement in crime and violence, which could mask their participation. Boko Haram once exploited this same logic in Nigeria, using women and girls to uphold its insurgency because they were invisible agents of violence.

One analyst said: ‘Female aggression is not part of Chadian culture’ and ‘women who defy this norm are seen as aberrations.’ Asked about awareness of women’s complicity, a local journalist said: ‘It’s not even talked about.’

Evidence indicates that women’s involvement is less direct compared to men, but that Chadian women sometimes go against traditional gender norms, whether willingly or under social and economic pressures. However minimal, women’s roles must be interrogated in order to find sustainable solutions to Chad’s kidnapping crisis.

It does not help that state and community responses favour hard security solutions over social ones – a situation enabled by the historically low level of gender analysis in research on illicit economies in Central Africa.

Sparse media coverage of kidnappings, somewhat offset by growing use of social media for local news, makes gendered analysis especially difficult. Local reporting often captures incidents in stark headlines, but rarely features women beyond their portrayal as victims.

ISS reviews of dozens of kidnapping media reports from 2017 to 2025 reveal only one where a woman requested two other women to kidnap a baby boy, but for personal reasons, not ransom.

The failure to address the reality of women’s multiple roles has direct security implications. Responses risk leaving entire segments of kidnapping economies untouched, prolonging insecurity. Policies that focus only on ‘protecting’ women rather than accounting for their active participation in kidnappings will misallocate resources and miss opportunities for prevention, intelligence and building resilience.

Breaking this cycle requires a deliberate shift. Policymakers and researchers must ask new questions: How do gendered norms shape who participates in kidnapping? How do sexual and economic economies intersect? How can women’s roles be more accurately identified to enable effective responses?

A gender-informed approach would engage women, not only as victims, but as multidimensional actors in kidnapping economies. This would require incorporating analysis of gender norms, sexual commodification and women’s mobilisation into sustained research, media reporting and security policy.

Kidnapping in Chad is not just a crime of violence or profit; it is also a gendered economy that both exploits and depends on women. Treating women only as victims misunderstands the problem and weakens solutions, leaving gaps that criminal actors exploit.

Written by Titilope F Ajayi, Senior Research Consultant, Central Africa Observatory, ISS