Two students navigate street harassments, barriers in religious spaces, and Islamophobia in the community
By: Maryrose Villena
Aishah Adewale never thought she’d be called a slur while biking through the city—an experience she’d only heard and seen in movies back home.
“I didn’t know what to think of it. I felt bad,” Adewale said.
The 20-year-old Data Science and Machine Learning student said she was used to colourism back in her home country, Nigeria, but she was surprised to face discrimination in Canada.
About 73 per cent of women experience Islamophobia both in public spaces and in school, according to a report from the Manitoba Islamic Association in 2022.
Adewale says she has concerns as a visible minority. As a Black Muslim woman, she worries how her looks and how she dresses might affect her chances when applying for jobs—especially her safety in public spaces.
“I don’t exactly feel safe here. I could get attacked—I am visibly Black, and I visibly wear a hijab,” she said.
Manitoba has 37 per cent of Canadians who negatively view Islam according to Canada’s official website. Black Muslims tend to navigate a more complex type of discrimination, where racism intersects with Islamophobia; intensifying challenges they face as explained from Canada’s 2021 guide to Islamophobia.
Adewale said acts of racism or Islamophobia should be reported and met with consequences. For her, it is wrong for someone to be addressed by the color of their skin or what they wear. She worries for people like her who don’t have a chance to speak up about their experiences, may it be through fear or not having assurance they’ll be heard.
There has been a rise in incidents of Islamophobia since 2023, but there are still alarming occurrences that go unreported, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and without accountability, it becomes normalized.
There are 15 per cent police reported hate crimes in 2022 according to Statistics Canada, and 73 per cent resulted in charges.
Ediwa Abdallah Mansoor, 22, knows that feeling.
She said she was cursed out for her religion when she was taking the bus one day. She felt bad after that incident, leading her to walk 20 minutes every day to school instead.
“They said: ‘Fuck Islam,’” said Mansoor.
“People see you dressed (in religious clothing) and they back away,” she said.
Mansoor said people are uneducated about Islam and they only see the negative side.
Uneducation and misinformation play a major role with Islamophobia, a 2023 report by the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights says. They say educating young students to Islam will help them to accept Muslims in the community.
Mansoor came to Canada with her family as refugees back in 2023 from Uganda. Mansoor initially struggled with feeling left out, but she said she eventually learned to stick with her people.
She goes to the Winnipeg Central Mosque at Ellice Avenue — the same one as Adewale.
When Adewale arrived alone in Winnipeg last January 2024.
Adewale said she felt welcomed within the Muslim community. On the other hand, she struggled to find spaces to practice her faith. She also found that there are not a lot of mosques in the city.
Adewale found that mosques here lack separated rooms where she can do ablution—an Islamic ritual of washing parts of the body before prayer.
The mosques do their best to accommodate their needs by putting up curtains, but it is not like back home where women can have their own room, said Adewale.
Adewale also faces this problem in school at RRC Polytech’s Exchange District Campus prayer rooms.
“The rooms are small,” Adewale said.
She says she felt uncomfortable praying in them if men were present.
During Ramadan last year, Adewale said she experienced challenges balancing her rituals and school because she had back to back classes with little breaks.
“There was not enough time to refresh,” she said.
Adewale said she felt excited and proud after hearing about the election of Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York City. She was glad that her community is being represented in a significant way.
She says Winnipeg is doing their best to steer in the same direction, especially with the opening of the first Nigerian Muslim mosque.
