Despite Barrier, it is empowering to be a Muslim woman in Britain (Shaista Gohir – UK) Introduction I am a board member of Muslim Women’s Network UK, the only national Muslim women’s organization in Britain. Even though Muslim women face many barriers, it is still empowering to be a Muslim woman in Britain. You may be wondering why I have chosen to be positive despite the fact that Muslim women face so many barriers – well too when we all think about Muslim women there is a tendency to only focus on the problems they face. Little or no attention is paid to their successes and achievements. However, I believe it is important to celebrate and highlight these as it can also be one strategy to advance their rights. And this also helps to:  To raise aspirations of young girls  To show girls and woman change is possible  To break stereotypes The barriers However, before I talk about the positive experiences of Muslim women, I want to give you some background information. Muslim women are one of the most disadvantaged groups in Britain – they have the poorest health, live in the poorest housing, have the highest unemployment rates and face discrimination on multiple levels because of their gender, ethnicity, religion and the way they dress. They also face internal, problems linked to their culture. In addition to all this, their bodies have become battlegrounds for extremists on both sides – on one side you have a rise in religious extremism and conservative Muslims are criticizing women like me who do not cover their heads – they tell us we are too westernized, too integrated and are bad Muslim women. On the side, right wing politicians are telling Muslim women who choose to cover that they are not integrated enough. Muslim women making history - politics However, despite all of this, Muslim women in Britain have also made history. Last year in the elections, we saw for the first time a Muslim woman being included in the government cabinet. For the first time we also saw three elected members of parliament. Other Muslim female role models Politics is not the only arena where Muslim women are breaking barriers. Muslim women are participating at all levels in civil society and in diverse sectors. For example, we have Muslim women in the police force, in the army, as district judges, lawyers, teachers, scientists, engineers, bankers. There are also muslim female actors, tv presenters, comedians, writers and even participating in sports. For example, one young girl is training in boxing for the 2016 olympics, another girl who is about 16 years old is plays golf at an international level representing Wales and Great Britain in tournaments. Another young woman plays for her regional women’s cricket team and was the first Asian and muslim woman to do