Muslim women made up 90.6% of victims of Islamophobia in Belgium in 2019, according to a report presented by the Collectif contre l'islamophobie en Belgique (CCIB) on Friday.
The CCIB last year received 108 complaints of Islamophobia, of which 96 led to the opening of cases, the group noted in its report, presented at the launch of the Brussels Week of Action against Hate and Islamophobia, SBAHI.
Eighty of the 96 investigations confirmed that the actions were in fact Islamophobic. For the 64 cases in which at least one of the victims was known, nine times out of 10 they were women. Men made up 9.4% of those targeted.
In almost nine cases out of 10, the perpetrators’ actions were against the law: more than half (51.3%) were cases of discrimination, 16.3% constituted incitement to hatred, 15% were hate crimes and five percent were acts of harassment, mostly in the workplace.
To fight against Islamophobia, the CCIB is seeking to raise awareness in the media and among political and opinion leaders. To this end the Centre is organising a series of lectures and debates with journalists, researchers, institutions and opinion makers under the SBAHI week of actions, which began on Friday evening.
These meetings will be held in collaboration with various associations and institutions, including the Mouvement contre le racisme, l'antisémitisme, la xénophobie (MRAX - Movement against Racism, anti-Semitism and Xenophobia), Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique (UPJB – Union of Jewish Progressives of Belgium) and a panel of Brussels-based journalists from “mainstream” and “alternative” media.
They will be livestreamed on the CCIB’s Facebook page, which features the entire programme for the week.
The Brussels Times
