Britain targets Muslim women to fight extremists

By Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Siddhartha Dubey

LONDON (Reuters) - In a school in south London, women in headscarves are learning English, childcare skills and citizenship, to smooth their integration into British life.

The courses are encouraged under a new government policy to "empower" Muslim women, ultimately to combat the threat from Islamist violence, a threat made brutally clear when four homegrown suicide bombers killed 52 people in London in 2005.

Triggered by events from racial violence in northern England in 2001 to the London bombings, British policy on ethnic minorities has shifted from a "laissez-faire" approach to encouraging integration or "community cohesion", said Rick Muir, research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

But Shazia Qayum's story illustrates the obstacles still to be overcome in a country with more than 1.6 million Muslims.

Qayum, who lives in the northern city of Derby, says her family kept her away from school for a year at age 15, planning a forced marriage to a Pakistani cousin.

She ran away from her family after her marriage: now aged 28, she works with women who are undergoing similar experiences: "In the eyes of my parents, I am dead," she said.

"The surprising thing ... is that no one asked the question where I was. No one from education welfare. No one from social services and no one from the police."

This sort of alienation and isolation is one problem that the "empowerment" scheme could address.

The policy's backers say the main goal is for Britain's estimated 800,000 Muslim women to become more influential in their communities, which might stem the threat from disaffected young Muslim men.

"Muslim women have a unique role to play in tackling the spread of violent extremism," Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said as she unveiled the plan, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"I want to see more done in communities to build the capacity of Muslim women to shape their communities and to engage with disaffected groups."

It's a message that resonates with the women at the Bellenden Old School in south London, but the policy has been denounced as patronizing and clumsy by some Muslim leaders.

"I know I can offer something to this country," said Ines Meddah, a 26-year-old Algerian lawyer at the London school. "But sometimes I feel like I am in a prison because I struggle to share my know-how."

ALIENATION

From a new citizenship test for people seeking to live in Britain to a recent suggestion that young people swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, the pressure to integrate is mounting -- but it faces complex and deep-rooted obstacles.