Scotland: Muslim women avoid reporting racism

Scotland: Muslim women avoid reporting racism


Shouts of 'Terrorist' and 'Osama Bin Laden' on the way into an Eid party. Being chased out of a park crying because a man thinks the way you dress is a danger to children. Both racism. Both to Muslim women. Neither reported to the police.


Catrin Nye of BBC Asian Network has been investigating after a charity set up to offer the women support claimed hundreds of racist crimes against Muslim women in Scotland are going unreported.


Amina is a Scottish helpline for the country's Muslim females.


Workers take around five to six calls a day, sometimes for hours at a time, and they say approximately half the women who call will have suffered hate crime of some sort. Of those, only one in four will go to the police.


One reason given is that the women feel an incident is too trivial, or don't feel the police could actually do anything about it.


The helpline says it is recording a worrying number of callers who are accustomed to the racism and pass it off as part of life.


"Generally speaking the women will be like 'Oh it's ok, I don't want to report it because it's not a big deal, everyone faces that, my Asian neighbour's also had that," Samina Ansari, Amina's helpline development officer, said.


"It's become the norm that 'Oh it's not a huge crime, I'll just put up with it.'


"But really you can get quite severe incidents where it affects people's mental health.


"Just in terms in socialising or going out, people stop doing all these things."


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The helpline offers a third party reporting service so that women do not have to speak to the police directly but forces are still urging people to come forward with crimes and make sure their statistics are accurate.


Ch Insp Jane Black, of the Equality and Diversity unit at Strathclyde Police, said nobody should have to put up with such treatment.


"I strongly urge individuals to report any matters," she said.


"If they have been assaulted or verbally abused and they believe it's because of their race or religion then that's sufficient for us.


"If it does indeed result in increasing crime figures, that's a positive for us, and ultimately we can then work with partners to try and eradicate it at source."


For Amina what is crucial is that generationally, things are changing in Scotland, as with the rest of the UK.


Asians living in Scotland, including those of Pakistani heritage like Samina and Shamala are now third, fourth and fifth generation, born and raised there.


Amina said: "They need to do it (report racist crimes) to show that this is unacceptable. Older generations, they were more inclined to sort of sign it off.


"Should anything happen you need to report it because it's not acceptable, and if you're not doing it for yourself, do it for your family. Do it for your kids."


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Source: BBC (English), h/t Islamophobia Watch