News Briefs: Week of September 20, 2010

This week, Muslim women’s fashion takes off in India, a new study on Muslim women’s rights in the Middle East is authored, the discrimination faced by Muslim women in headscarves in the workplace is documented, and Disney asks a Muslim employee to wear a beret over hear headscarf.
The Times of India reports that the first Islamic Boutique opened up in the area of Kolkuta . The store sells burqas, headscarves and other modest attire for Muslim women. The apparel is considered high-end, including burqas with sequence embroidery.

PR Newswire reports that the American Islamic Congress (AIC) will publish its study of Muslim women in the Middle East. The study critically analyzes the social positioning of Muslim women in the Middle East and sets forth several suggestions for reform in the region.

One India reports that Muslim women in the US who wear the headscarf face workplace discrimination. Professor Sonia Ghumman from the University of Hawaii surveyed 219 American Muslim women as they were looking for work. The survey found 30 percent of the women were concerned about applying for work, 88 percent said they were not willing to take off their hijabs when applying for work, 63 percent said they were aware of incidences where women wearing hijabs were refused work, and 22 percent said they were personally denied work because of their attire.

The New York Daily News reports that Disney has decided to let its employee, Noor Abdullah, wear the Muslim headscarf with a beret. According to the report, the theme park initially opposed Abdullah’s wearing of the headscarf during her job duties at the park’s ticket booth. Disney has conceded that a headscarf is fine as long as Abdullah also wears a blue beret with it.

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