This week news reports emerged that British widow Sally Jones is leading a secret army of female jihadis who are aiming- along with their children, to launch a violent wave of suicide attacks in Europe.

The mother of two has been hailed by Daesh as a figurehead for the recruitment of western girls and women. Bragging about her plans to release hell on the UK through planned attacks and suicide missions, Sally Jones has been able to maintain a presence on social media despite her accounts repeatedly being taken down. She is also believed to have recruited other females through social media.

Elsewhere, Jihadi bride Aqsa Mahmood has also been instrumental in recruiting young girls from Europe. She has even written a checklist for schoolgirls wanting to travel to join Daesh.

The ex-Glasgow University student, who left her home in 2013, is on a UN wanted list because of her significant role in brainwashing females into travelling to Syria using social network sites, luring them into believing that a perfect life awaits them. Through social media, she has urged Muslims unable to travel to commit terrorist acts in their home towns.

Aqsa’s parents made desperate pleas for her return and have described her as becoming a “bedroom radical” who betrayed her family.

Sally Jones and Aqsa Mahmood’s stories are further proof of the dangers of online radicalisation, and the risk our children and loved ones face when it comes to extremists lurking online waiting for their next victim to brainwash.

Though Twitter has recently announced that it had removed 235,000 accounts for violating their extremism policy, bringing the total number of removed to 360,000 since the middle of 2015, it is still up to all of us to do more. Parents in particular must play a huge role in the fight to protect our young people.

At Jan Trust, we are working extremely hard through our Web Guardians™ programme to ensure that mothers are able to protect their loved ones against the threat of online radicalisation.

The programme equips parents with the necessary tools to safeguard their children from the dangers of online radicalisation. It is more important than ever that parents are at the forefront of this battle. We run workshops across the country to thousands of young people, parents and practitioners aimed at educating on the dangers of online radicalisation. If you want to get in touch and find out about workshops near you get in touch at http://webguardians.org/contact/ 

Join us and become part of the fight.