JAN Trust has paved the way for the role of women to be taken seriously in society, and especially when it comes to countering extremism. We have recognised the importance of women in protecting their children from online radicalisation and extremism since 2010. Our work with women began 30 years ago in 1989 when our …
Refusal to apologise – Endorsement of Islamophobia
Boris Johnson’s comments should not be taken as a joke, they show how dangerously and increasingly present Islamophobia is in national and political figures’ discourse. As we all well know by now, the MP and former Foreign Secretary, has recently mocked women who wear the niqab by comparing the way they look to “letter boxes” …
CEO rebukes MP Boris Johnson for discriminatory comments
“This inflammatory language will in fact motivate and fuel hate crimes” CEO Sajda Mughal has spoken out against MP Boris Johnson’s comments, who stated that Muslim women who wear the burqa look like “letterboxes” and bank robbers. Read about what Sajda has to say here.
One JAN Trust employee’s experience of Islamophobic hate speech
One of our employees was subject to anti-Islamic rhetoric whilst carrying out off-site research outside Westfield shopping centre in Stratford in March. Her story illustrates how normalised and ubiquitous anti-Islamic sentiment is and how much work still needs to be done to tackle Islamophobia in this country. Earlier this year, I was working on an …
Shroud Of Dishonour – What really happens behind the curtains?
Two prominent social and cultural patriarchal constructs play a role in all aspects of a woman’s life in the South Asian (SA) community; they are izzat (honour) and sharam (shame). Izzat and sharam are both factors that impede the assessment of child sex abuse, domestic violence and honour killings. These were and still are widespread issues swarming the community. Embed …
Justice, the veil and a fair trial
The President of the UK Supreme court, Baroness Hale, has suggested that women giving evidence in court should not be able to hide their faces behind religious veils. However, does this position actually contribute to fairer trials or just deter women who choose to wear the veil from appearing in court at all? Embed from Getty Images During a …
The Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper: JAN Trust’s response
Yesterday, the Government released their Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper which is up for consultation until the 5th June 2018. Although the paper contains an emphasis on the importance of localised initiatives, the lack of funding pledges for those services may render tangible progress non-existent. Within the Integration Green Paper, it is noted that a ‘worrying number of …
Our Web Guardians™ programme in 2017
Our Web Guardians™ programme for 2017 has finished! JAN Trust would like to share with you the successes of the 2017 programme and tell you why this vital programme needs to continue. The waiting list for the 2018 programme is ever growing! Web Guardians™, largely targeted at Muslim mothers, aims to provide participants with digital …
Implicit Bias: The insidious nature of discrimination
66% of the British population, who have taken the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT), were found to have an underlying preference towards white people. What is implicit bias and how can it be combatted? For the most part, people do not like to think that they judge or stereotype other social groups based on signifiers …
Covered Up or Not
Islamophobia v Inclusion You wouldn’t be wrong to think that the UK today, is unquestionably at its most hostile in decades. The political climate is not ‘strong and stable’, with Brexit looming and poverty increasing, anger and scapegoating are rife. The turbulent nature of today’s society, along with more recent terrorist atrocities, has added to the …