Nigeria Muslim women yesterday expressed concerns over the alleged stigmatisation and harassment of women in hijab, the women’s veil, across the country.
The National Amirah of Al-Mu’minaat Organisation, Hajia Nimatullah Abdullateef, who addressed reporters in Lagos ahead of the World Hijab Day, noted that Muslim women were worried by the way the Army harassed their colleagues within and outside conflict zones because they wore hijab.
She said hijab is a symbol of the Muslim woman’s faith and adherence to Allah’s injunction.
According to her, Muslim women remember the harassment, persecution, emotional and psychological anguish women in hijab suffered recently in Nigeria, especially after President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that the nation might consider a ban on the Islamic dress code, if terrorists continued to use it as a cover to bomb innocent people.
Hajia Abdullateef decried the attempt by authorities of the Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in its Ibadan, Oyo State office, to legislate and limit the hijab standards in Nigeria.
The amirah (women’s leader) said the soldiers’ attitude remained a festering sore in “our heart, while we note with suppressed anguish the harassment of Muslim women in hijab by officers and men of the Nigerian Army within and without military installations in different cities all over Nigeria”.
She added: “Other government agencies are trying to rob the Muslim of the hijab as her right to freedom of religious expression, by demanding that she expose her ears during image capturing. These are: the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). We call on the leadership of these agencies to call their men to order.
“We wish to remind the Nigerian security institutions that Boko Haram is the enemy and not Muslim hijabis (women in hijab). Indeed, Boko Haram has used several ingenious garbs and artefacts to camouflage its members and carry out its dastardly and evil attacks, including fruits, vegetables, motor vehicles and even fake army and police uniforms…” Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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The fear of the hijab is the beginning of safety. Even Muslims get nervous when someone (who may be a man or a woman!) walks into a crowd! Other countries threatened with Islamic terrorism, with large Muslim population have accepted reality and banned the hijab for the time being.
ReplyDeleteIt is important that serious issues such as this be addressed in a balanced, reasonable and dispassionate manner for a lasting solution. According to a Yoruba proverb " Decapitation is definitely not the reasonable remedy for a severe headache". All Nigerians must join hands together to foster unity, mutual understanding and respect as well as concerted effort in combating the menace of boko haram. We need also be circumspect and careful in making our choices so that we do not end up creating greater problems than we are trying to solve through mutual alienation, division and castigation. Definitely it is against the principle of Natural justice that a whole community be punished for the crime of a few deranged individuals. We should also be mindful of setting wrong precedents which could be unsustainable in the future. For example are we also going to start calling for the ban on , pastoral robe, archbishop's garment, 'celes' garments and even other common clothes like suits, 'agbada' etc were this crazy boko haramists to switch to these garments as camouflages for their evil acts? Or have we forgotten that this deranged set of people also use suicide vests which could make them look ordinarily 'corporate' when worn under a shirt with a tie as the case may be? Shall we then abandon our clothes altogether and go naked on the streets ? We do not need this needless debate about banning hijab or other religious dresses at this time. Afterall for how many centuries has the hijab been with us without causing any issues?
ReplyDeleteIndeed what we need is an ingenious, holistic and all-stakeholders-brought -in approach premised on sound intelligence gathering, better identity management infrastructure, effective communication, improved citizens vigilance, enhanced capacities for our security forces complemented with requisite socio-economic intervention and poverty alleviation/elimination.