Download or read book Refugee Women written by Leah Bassel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates over the headscarf and niqab, so-called 'sharia-tribunals', Female Genital Operations and forced marriages have raged in Europe and North America in recent years, raising the question - does accommodating Islam violate women's rights? The book takes issue with the terms of this debate. It contrasts debates in France over the headscarf and in Canada over religious arbitration with the lived experience of a specific group of Muslim women: Somali refugee women. Breaking from scholarship that focuses on whether the accommodation of culture and religion harms women, Bassel pleads compellingly for a consideration of women in all their complexity, as active participants in democratic life.