Ideologically Motivated Sexual Grooming

Across diverse societies, coercion often hides behind cultural norms, religious expectations, legal systems, and gendered power structures. This book exposes a disturbing but overlooked form of abuse: ideologically motivated sexual grooming – the manipulation of women and girls from religious minorities for both sexual exploitation and coerced religious conversion. Through case studies from three parts of the world, the book examines how this phenomenon unfolds across different faiths and contexts. The stories shared reveal a consistent pattern: women from minority backgrounds are sometimes targeted not only because of gender but also because of their religious identity. This book is not a critique of interfaith relationships or religious belief. It does, nonetheless, interrogate whether there is an ideological driver behind men’s insistence on women converting, even when the legal system does not require it. In all the cases of the women whose stories are told here, the same question arises: If there is mutual love and respect, why is there such emphasis on – and indeed glorification of – the conversion of the women concerned from minority to majority religion? Ideologically Motivated Sexual Grooming is an urgent call to recognise, understand, and address a subtle but devastating form of gender-based violence – and to create conditions where all women, regardless of faith, can live, love, and believe freely.