British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday called to stop the discrimination against Muslim women from within their own communities, and help them learn English to gain independence and better integrate.
According to Cameron as quoted by The Times, it is time to confront the “backward attitudes” of Muslim men who have “damaging control” over the women in their lives. He likewise said that “people subscribe to the flawed idea of separate development” from a place of “passive tolerance.”
Cameron has launched a 20 million pound ($28.5 million) fund to teach women in isolated communities English, and said if new migrants do not learn English they may not be allowed to stay in the UK.
Around 190,000 Muslims women, comprising 22%, speak little to no English according to new figures cited by the prime minister, and many of those women have lived in the UK for decades. A full 40,000 of the Muslim women speak absolutely no English.
“So it’s no surprise that 60% of women of a Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage are economically inactive,” said Cameron.
The lack of integration into the UK fuels Muslim extremism, he added, noting that “separate development” causes second-generation immigrants to seek meaning and belonging elsewhere.
Muslim women report “an alarming picture of forced gender segregation, discrimination and social isolation from mainstream British life,” he said.
“We must take on the minority of men who perpetuate these backward attitudes and exert such damaging control over their wives, sisters and daughters. And we must never again allow passive tolerance to prevent us from telling the hard truths.”
Cameron said British society needs to be “more assertive about our liberal values, clearer about the expectations we place on those who come to live here and build our country together, and more creative and generous in the work we do to break down barriers.”
Addressing migrants wanting to extend their stay in the UK or apply for citizenship, he said, “we will now say: if you don’t improve your (English) fluency, that could affect your ability to stay in the UK. This will help make it clear to those men who stop their partners from integrating that there are consequences.”
