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…”
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