EACH are coming home pregnant with their children Tunisian women who have travelled to Syria to offer themselves to Islamist fighters are returning home pregnant with rebels’ children, it has been revealed. A Tunisian government minister told members of parliament this week the women, who are waging ‘sexual jihad’, are ‘having sexual relations with 20,30,100’ men before returning to Tunisia pregnant. Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou made the revelations at the National Constituent Assembly on Thursday, though didn’t elaborate on the number of women who have returned in this condition. Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war. The minister also did not say how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for such a purpose, although media reports have said hundreds have done so, France 24 revealed. However, Ben Jeddou also said that since he assumed office in March, ‘six thousand of our young people have been prevented from going’ to the country. He has said in the past that border controls have been boosted to intercept young Tunisians seeking to travel to Syria. Earlier this year a group of Tunisian girls travelled to rebel-held Northern Syria to offer themselves to opposition fighters. Their action came after growing in concern in Tunisia about religious orders or ‘fatwas’ that circulated the internet calling on Muslim women to perform jihad through sex. A Tunisian minister of religious affairs appealed to girls at the time not to be influenced by Islamic preachers outside of Tunisia who made a number of ‘sexual fatwas’. Noureddine al-Khadimi rejected ‘sexual jihad’ fatwas, urging Tunisian people and state institutions to not respond to them.