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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Imam wants talks on hijab with ministry

by

20160727

Chair­man of Ummah T&T, Imam Rasheed Karim, says he will be seek­ing a meet­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly the law en­force­ment agen­cies in T&T, name­ly the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to dis­cuss mod­i­fi­ca­tion of uni­forms to ac­com­mo­date the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

Karim's re­marks came in light of Tues­day's judg­ment in the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal, where Giselle Glaude, 31, of St Joseph, won her dis­crim­i­na­tion case against the Qual­i­ty Se­cu­ri­ty Body­guard Ser­vices Lim­it­ed.

Glaude was award­ed $150,000 with an in­ter­est rate of six per cent per an­num from the date of the fil­ing of the com­plaint, aris­ing out of an in­ci­dent in which she was ter­mi­nat­ed for wear­ing her hi­jab as part of her uni­form.

On March 26, 2012, Glaude was dis­missed as a se­cu­ri­ty guard for fail­ing to wear the com­pa­ny's ap­proved uni­form. She was ac­cused of mod­i­fy­ing the uni­form by wear­ing a hi­jab short­ly af­ter be­com­ing a Mus­lim on Ju­ly 9, 2011.

The se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny said Glaude had vi­o­lat­ed its uni­form code, not­ing it was ap­proved by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and they could not de­vi­ate from that. The com­pa­ny con­sid­ered Glaude's re­fusal to re­move her hi­jab an act of gross mis­con­duct.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Karim said that case ought to set the prece­dence for em­ploy­ers. He said too many times sis­ters in the faith had ap­proached him to say they were hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting a job be­cause they wore the hi­jab and he him­self had to in­ter­vene.

"Giv­en what is hap­pen­ing in the world to­day, peo­ple are fear­ful of Mus­lims and peo­ple wear­ing the hi­jab, which is a form of dis­crim­i­na­tion and this must be ad­dressed," Karim said.

"I am go­ing to make a call for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in T&T to ac­com­mo­date men and women in the Mus­lim faith to be al­lowed to grow their beards and have it well kept, for the men, and for the women, to wear their hi­jab be­cause this is a coun­try where every creed and race find an equal place," he added.

He made it clear he would not be ask­ing for the com­plete change of a uni­form but at least for it to be more mod­est for women and add to it hi­jabs for Mus­lim women.

Head of the Is­lam­ic Front, Umar Ab­dul­lah, said he too re­ceived a lot of com­plaints from Mus­lim women.

"The com­plaints are too many and I am hap­py to see the out­come of this case and I hope em­ploy­ers now learn and al­low hi­jabs," Ab­dul­lah said.


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