A local mosque in Oakville, Ontario, is encouraging young Muslim women and children to join self-defense classes after last month’s mosque terrorist attack in New Zealand, Global News reported.
“If this were to happen to us, and we’re in a very rural area here, how would this class react?” Jaseena DaCosta, a 19-year-old hijab-wearing Muslim woman who both teaches and takes the class, asked.
“Would we be able to do anything about it to change the situation and have a better result out of it? It hits all of us,” she added, motioning to the class happening just behind her.
The martial arts and self-defense class is taught by Toronto-based organization UMMA Martial Arts.
DeCosta said she began taking the classes mainly as a means of physical activity, yet Islamophobic attacks reported in the news gave her an added motivation.
“It’s constantly getting to me now. I don’t know if I’m safe sometimes. That’s why I’m so happy because this class has taught me to be prepared for anything,” she said.
Leila Nasr, who works with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said that upticks in reports were noted following the Parliament Hill shooting in 2013 and the van attack in Toronto last year.
“The same thing happened after the Quebec mosque shooting as well. Quebec’s highest number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the year 2017 happened in the month directly following Jan. 29,” she explained.
Children take a self-defense class at a local mosque.
Maham Abedi/Global News
Rising Trend
Self-defense classes for Muslim women came to headlines after Rana Abdelhamid, a young American Muslim, started an initiative for self-empowering vulnerable young Muslim women.
In the UK, Khadijah Safari, a Hijabi Muslim mother-of-four who has a black belt in kickboxing, has been teaching Muslim women how to defend themselves amid rising hate crimes and Islamophobia.
In Canada, Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council (AMPAC) organized in 2016 a safety workshop for Muslim women.
Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey estimated Muslims in Canada to be around 1,053,945, or about 3.2% of the population, making Islam the second largest religion in the country after Christianity.
In the first two months of 2019, NCCM recorded an average of roughly one hate-related incident per week — a total of 11.
Last February, Alberta’s first anti-racism advisory council started work, focusing on strengthening the human rights commission, improving the recognition of immigrants, and ensuring school curriculum reflects the province’s diversity.
The anti-racism advisory council is one of the major projects to come out of a series of high-profile racist incidents, including the shooting of six men at a Quebec City mosque in January 2017.
Statistics Canada reported a 151% spike in police-reported anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2017 following the Quebec mosque attack and the RCMP says far-right extremists have become emboldened in Canada.