In this submission, Rights & Security International encourages the Women and Equalities Committee to:
- Recommend that the government scrap its counter-extremism strategy, ‘Prevent’, due to the strategy’s Islamophobic impacts – including those gendered impacts we outline in this submission;
- Continue using the term ‘Islamophobia’, rather than using less comprehensive phrases such as ‘anti-Muslim hatred’. Using the latter phrasing in law and policy could leave significant gaps in thinking about protection from everyday discrimination and other harms;
- Ensure that the government deploys available legislation, such as the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998, to protect Muslims and people perceived as Muslim from Islamophobia; and
- Recommend that the government consider the impact of its policies and legislation – particularly those related to counter-terrorism and counter-extremism – on Muslims, and particularly intersectional impacts with gender.
