SAO PAULO: As the number of Muslims in Latin America increases and Islamic communities acquire exposure, more and more incidences of Islamophobia are being documented in the region. Community leaders, the majority of whom are women, are working to address the problem.
Brazil is the only country in Latin America where an extensive study on Islamophobia has been conducted, with an estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Muslims living there.
The topic has been in the forefront after a copy of the holy Qur’an was torched on June 28 outside Stockholm’s principal mosque in an unpleasant act permitted by the authorities in Sweden. Even though South America has not seen such blatant acts of intolerance, Islamophia is thought to be a problem that lurks in many nations.
Led by anthropologist Francirosy Barbosa, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo and herself a Muslim convert, the research involved a survey of 653 Muslims that showed most of them having already suffered some kind of Islamophobia.
“Women were the majority of the respondents, something that already demonstrates that they’re the ones who suffer the most,” Barbosa told Arab News.
54 percent of the men who participated in the study, including those who were born Muslims and those who converted to the faith, claimed to have experienced some form of embarrassment because of their faith. The majority of cases took place on the street, at work, or in a classroom.
Women are more likely to experience such incidents than men, with 66 percent of Muslims who were born into the faith and 83 percent of converts reporting such incidents.
Source: Arab News