Hundreds of divorced couples are being forced to 'reunite' in Chechnya, under a new government program which the country's president claims will help defeat ISIS.

President Ramzan Kadyrov claims children of divorced parents are more likely to become Islamist terrorists, and so ordered a programme of 'family reconciliation'.

The reconciliations have been pushed through even in cases where the ex-husband has remarried, forcing former spouses to become their second wife.

For the kids: Chechen President Ramzan Khadyrov has ordered 'family reconciliations', because he claims children of divorced parents are more likely to become radicalised

Some 948 couples have got back together following government-ordered talks with religious leaders, which some indications that not all reunions had been voluntary.

A woman living in the capital Grozny said that refusing would mean going against Islam and the president, putting pressure on those brought in for 'talks'.

'If you refuse, it means you are going against not only religion and customs, but also against his will,' she told the BBC.

'It is clear that, when you are pressed from all sides, you have to agree.'

A representative for the so called 'headquarters for harmonising marital and family relations', told BBC that the arrangements were for the benefit of children - even when it meant that a woman became her ex-husband's second wife.

'After our commission's work, a man got his first wife back, and now lives with two wives, because under Islam a man can have four wives,' he said.

New rules: Kadyrov's 'reconciliation programme' has 'reunited' some 948 couples since it was launched in June this year

Chechnya is not an independent country, but one of Russia's federal republics, with its own government.

The state is headed by 40-year-old Putin-loyalist Kadyrov, a hardline Muslim father-of-12 who has been accused of human rights violations and persecution of homosexuals.

He launched his 'family reconciliation' scheme in June, claiming that children of married couples were less likely to become radicalised and turn to Islamist extremism.

'We've got to wake people up, talk to them and explain. We've got to return the women who left their husbands and reconcile them. This is a priority,' Kadyrov said according to The Independent.

Earlier this year, Kadyrov, was accused of ordering a clampdown on homosexuals, which saw Chechen police rounded up more than 100 men suspected of being gay, killing at least three.

It was reported that Chechen authorities had also opened a 'concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler's in the 1930s, where campaigners say gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death.

However, Kadyrov later denied the allegations, saying that he could not have ordered neither clampdown nor concentraion camps as Chechnya 'did not have any gay people.

During an interview with HBO's investigative sports news programme Real Sports he said: 'This is nonsense. We don't have those kinds of people here. We don't have any gays.

'If there are any, take them to Canada. Praise be to God.

'Take them far from us so we don't have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them.'