Veiled and Undercover: Exposing Harassment of Muslim Women in the U.K.

Hate-crime expert Irene Zempi wore Islamic clothing in public to research harassment against visibly Muslim women in the U.K. The disdain and abuse she experienced was so bad, she says, she didn’t want to leave the house.

Originally from Greece, Irene Zempi is a foreigner in the U.K., but it’s not obvious until she speaks. She didn’t give much thought to her ability to blend in until 2009, when she began working at the charity Victim Support in Leicester. That was where she met Muslim women who were being abused in public because of the way they dressed. Propelled by the injustice and shocked at the lack of information on the topic, she went on to earn a PhD in criminology with a focus on the purposeful victimization of visibly Muslim women.

While Zempi was conducting her doctoral research, she interviewed Muslim women who urged her to wear the Islamic hijab (headscarf), niqab (face veil) and jilbab (long dress) so she could better understand their collective experience. A practicing Orthodox Christian, she agreed that dressing the part would be the best way for her to examine the issue of female-focused Islamophobia. So, in 2012, she went undercover for a month in Leicester. The level of harassment she faced was astonishing, she says.

Nearly four years have passed, but the data from Zempi’s research is now more timely than ever. In 2015 alone, there was a 326 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the U.K., with Muslim women more likely to be attacked than Muslim men. And police figuresshow that hate crimes soared in the country following the Brexit vote earlier this year.

Women & Girls spoke with Zempi, who teaches criminology at Nottingham Trent University, about her month as a Muslim, the results of which will be published fully for the first time in an upcoming report with co-author Imran Awan of Birmingham City University .

Women & Girls: Why are Muslim women more likely to experience Islamophobia than Muslim men?

Zempi: We see that Muslim women who are visibly Muslim in terms of their dress are easy targets. It’s obvious that they’re practicing Muslims and, to some extent, wearing a veil is a symbol of Islam in the West. A hate crime is a message crime. Therefore, for hate crime perpetrators, attacking the symbol of Islam – the veil – sends the message to the wider community that all Muslims are vulnerable. The perpetrators think they can get away with it if they attack Muslim women because they don’t think the women will fight back or report it to the police because they view Muslim women as oppressed and forced to wear the veil.

So, there isn’t just one reason why Muslim women in veils are more likely to experience abuse. It’s a combination of reasons. Muslim men also suffer from Islamophobia. Women experience it more in the public space – like when they walk on the street or take public transport – while men are more likely to experience it in the labor market.