From SKY News (UK)
The number of Muslim women reporting hate crime has risen by up to 10%, according to a UK charity.
TELL MAMA, a national project measuring anti-Muslim incidents, has told Sky News that over the last 18 months they have seen a 5-10% increase.
The number of women wearing the niqab, the face veil, and reporting hate crime has also doubled in the last two years.
Fiyaz Mughal, director of TELL MAMA, says it is not clear whether incidents are rising or reporting of the problem is getting better.
“Over the last two years our data has shown that women suffer more incidents of hate and they also suffer more aggressive incidents of hate,” she said.
“The veil seems to delegitimise the sense of femininity of that person in the eyes of the perpetrator.
“It seems to become something they become fixated upon rather than the individual, the female behind the veil.”
Research has shown that Muslim women are subjected to “opportunistic” verbal or physical attacks, mostly by men, on the street.
Yasmeen Khalid, 21, from Bromsgrove, says she has always faced abuse, but the problem has become worse in recent months.
She says out of 30 different hate crime incidents, she has only ever reported two, and admits wearing a hijab has made her a target.
“By looking, they instantly know I’m Muslim… sometimes people call me a terrorist, sometimes they say ‘Paki’, sometimes someone has called me ‘Taliban’ or stuff like that,” she said.
“Sometimes I walk off humiliated – I shouldn’t be humiliated but I am humiliated.”
