Palestinian-American supermodel Bella Hadid is using her platform to raise awareness of discrimination against Muslim women who wear the hijab.
Hadid shared a series of powerful Instagram posts on Thursday, highlighting the issue to her 49 million followers.
Under one of the images, which was taken as part of a Jacquemus campaign and shows seven Muslim women dressed in brightly coloured outfits, Hadid wrote: “Although different forms of the hijab and head coverings are starting to make an appearance in fashion, let’s still remember the daily struggle, abuse, and discrimination Muslim women face on a regular basis because of their faith and what they stand for. To each woman’s body, stand their own opinion on what they should do with it. That is no one’s decision except for theirs.”
The model said that while the hijab is starting to make more of an appearance in the world of fashion, she wants people to remember the garment’s origin and why it is so important to Muslim women.
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“I have seen first hand, the discrimination that POC [people of color] & Muslim people face on a regular basis in fashion. I know many of my Muslim sisters have faced unfair projections of others. It’s biased, prejudice and straight up racist. I am not here to say what is right or wrong when it comes to wearing head coverings in fashion, because it is not my place to speak on how hijabi women feel but what I can say is:
If we are seeing more and more appreciation of hijabs and covers in fashion, we have to also acknowledge the cycle of abuse that Muslim women of all different ethnicities in fashion get met with on a regular basis within fashion houses, especially in Europe & America. Stand up for your Muslim friends. If you see something , say something,” she wrote.
The picture she posted was taken by French model Taqwa Bint Ali, a close friend of Hadid’s. “She said to me ‘I remember I decided to do this shoot because I never saw pictures of Muslim women smiling and colorful. I needed so much to create these images’,” she wrote.
“I’ve always wanted desperately to see this type of image and this representation of my generation, so I didn’t want to wait any longer for it to fall from the sky and let people speak for us, I wanted to do it myself. By us for us.”
She also shared a post in support of Hoda Al-Jamaa, the New Zealand schoolgirl, 17, who had to be taken to hospital after three other students allegedly ripped her off hijab and beat her, earlier this month.
“It makes me angry and sick to my stomach,” Hadid wrote. “We need to change this mindset of immediate judgement. Teach our friends, children, parents, families that wearing a hijab, being Muslim, or being anything other than white in general, does not equal being a threat or different than anyone else.”
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In a third post shared by the model, 26, she called on leaders in France, India, Quebec and Belgium to end “discriminatory” laws that prohibit the wearing of the hijab and other religious coverings.
The posts come as protests continue in Karnataka, India, after six teenage girls were banned from wearing the hijab in the classroom of their government-run college.
“I urge France, India, Quebec, Belgium, and any other countries in the world who are discriminatory against Muslim women, to rethink what decisions you have made or are trying to make in the future about a body that is not yours,” Hadid wrote.
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