UK employers ‘routinely snub’ Muslim women in headscarves

MUSLIM women who wear headscarves are routinely being passed over for jobs and sidelined in the workplace because of what is seen as one of the last forms of “acceptable” discrimination, MPs have warned.

Highly qualified women who have already overcome major barriers to train in professions such as law, are being written off because of crude assumptions that they are “submissive and weak”, a Commons report found.

Some are driven to abandon wearing traditional Islamic dress in order to get a good job, an inquiry by the Commons women and equalities committee was told.

Others find themselves interrogated – illegally – at job interviews about whether they are married and have children or want to, while those already in jobs find themselves passed over for important assignments because of as- sumptions that they might not be “allowed” to travel.

The report calls for urgent action to tackle unemployment in the Muslim community – with rates running at more than double the rate of the general population (12.8 per cent against 5.4 per cent) – or risk seeing further division in society.

It also calls for companies to introduce “name-blind” applications to reduce “unconscious bias” against Muslim and other minority candidates, backed up by a change in the law if necessary.

The recommendation echoes re- marks by President Barack Obama last year warning against “the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal”.

The inquiry, which took evidence from experts and individuals, including spending an afternoon with young Muslim students in Luton, also found women in particular facing simultaneous pressures both from their community and wider society.

Hostility towards Muslims was acting as a “chill factor” that put many off even applying for jobs, they found. In some cases, an upsurge in attacks on Muslim women has led many to look only for jobs which do not involve travelling after dark.

Maria Miller, chair of the committee, said: “The evidence was very strongly that … it was seen as acceptable to discriminate against Muslim women and that [people] almost didn’t see it as discrimination.

“You can’t have some women more equal than others.”