Often the targets of violent assaults, women wearing hijabs have become the most frequent and easily identifiable targets for Islamophobic attacks.
Physical and verbal abuse of Muslims more than doubled in the past two years including a 150 per cent spike in in-person incidents, the Islamophobia Register Australia has found in a study.
The toll had been palpable on all Muslims as fallout from global events fuelled domestic hatred and division, says the register’s executive director Nora Amath, whether they practised Islam or not.
“If I can use a word, it would be exhausting,” she told AAP on Thursday.
“It’s exhausting being a visibly Muslim woman in Australia because you’re having to navigate your safety on certain days.
“Whether it’s a local, national or global incident that references Muslims or Islam, you’re scapegoated and stereotyped into a monolith.”
The report covers a period including the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, during which about 1200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage.
Israeli retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more 50,000 Palestinians including more than 13,000 children, according to the United Nations.
Islamophobia soared to unprecedented levels in Australia as the events unfolded, marked by a fourteen-fold increase in the three weeks after October 7 compared to the same period the previous year, the research found.
Reported cases of anti-Semitism also soared after the attack, more than quadrupling in the subsequent year compared with the previous 12-month period, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Researchers from Monash and Deakin universities relied on data from Muslims in Australia reporting incidents into the Islamophobia register.
They documented 309 verified in-person incidents of Islamophobia and 366 verified online cases during the study period spanning 700 days, from January 2023 to November 2024.
The reported abuse averaged nearly two incidents per day.
Earlier in March, one Sydney mosque received an alleged threat online that referred to the 2019 Christchurch massacre, in which an Australian man killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand.
Two Muslim women were also allegedly attacked at a Melbourne shopping centre in February and targeted with racist abuse, prompting the prime minister and other leaders to condemn the incident after public pressure.
Muslim women and girls accounted for three-quarters of all Islamophobia victims, three-fifths of physical assaults and every target of reported spitting incidents, the report said.
Most of the perpetrators were men.
Dr Amath, herself a veiled Muslim woman, said going out in public spaces had become a precarious exercise at times.
“You’re navigating this minefield going about your everyday activities whether you’re going to be abused or perceived as different so you might not take public transport,” she said.
“These are circumstances many Muslim women face, including myself.”
In 2024, victims displaying pro-Palestinian symbols accounted for 25 per cent of all reported abusive incidents.
Dr Amath wants to see more robust legislation and better preventative programs to curb the abuse.
“We argue (Islamophobia) doesn’t just impact Muslims … racism hurts everyone, it’s a societal approach we need to engage in.”
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