Perceptions of Discrimination of Muslim Women in Belgium: A Study of Discriminatory Incidents Across Public and Private Organizations Reported to the National Equality Body

Abstract

In Belgium, Muslims have been affected by an increasingly hostile climate in which Islamophobia prospers. The need for further research into the gendered dynamics of Islamophobia in a Belgian context has been flagged, as the majority of complaints are made by women. In this contribution, the focus lies on to the narratives of the women who encounter this in their daily lives. Twenty-two Muslim women who decided to report their discriminatory experience to the national equality body were interviewed. Based on their lived experiences, this qualitative study aims to provide an in-depth description of the way in which Muslim women encounter discrimination in order to establish which “treatment, circumstances and behavior are perceived as discriminatory.”