Perceptions of Discrimination of Muslim Women in Belgium: A Study of Discriminatory Incidents Across Public and Private Organizations Reported to the National Equality Body

Cathérine Van De Graaf

doi:10.13169/islastudj.6.2.0207

Abstract

In Belgium, Muslims have been affected by an increasingly hostile climate in which Islamophobia prospers. The need for further research into the gendered dynamics of Islamophobia in a Belgian context has been flagged, as the majority of complaints are made by women. In this contribution, the focus lies on to the narratives of the women who encounter this in their daily lives. Twenty-two Muslim women who decided to report their discriminatory experience to the national equality body were interviewed. Based on their lived experiences, this qualitative study aims to provide an in-depth description of the way in which Muslim women encounter discrimination in order to establish which “treatment, circumstances and behavior are perceived as discriminatory.”

Highlights

On the June 14, 2020, after the Constitutional Court upheld a ban on students wearing headgear that represents a political, philosophical, or religious opinion or conviction in higher education,[1] Belgian higher education institutions were called out with a tweet demanding that they clarify where they stand on a headscarf ban.[2]
The overall objective of this study was to identify which treatment, circumstances, and behavior are perceived as discriminatory through the eyes of Belgian Muslim women who have reported these experiences to the national equality body
It is clear that rule-driven discrimination in the form of headscarf prohibitions on various levels is omnipresent

Summary

Introduction

On the June 14, 2020, after the Constitutional Court upheld a ban on students wearing headgear that represents a political, philosophical, or religious opinion or conviction in higher education,[1] Belgian higher education institutions were called out with a tweet demanding that they clarify where they stand on a headscarf ban.[2]. The accordance of an experience with a specific discrimination framework is investigated. In this qualitative study, the aim is to shift the focus back to their narratives. Not to say that the group of women that were interviewed for this study is monolithic What they all have in common is that they either witnessed or experienced discrimination based on religion and they had a strong desire to rectify it. They contacted the Belgian National Equality Body (NEB) to report this perceived discrimination

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion