Source: The Globe and Mail
Her roots in Canada stretch back through her francophone mother to the 1600s. Last week, wearing her Islamic face veil – the niqab, which has become a central issue in the federal election – she says she was trying to enter Shoppers Drug Mart at Toronto’s Fairview Mall when a man carrying a liquor-store bag blocked her path and then drove his elbow hard into her shoulder, in front of her two daughters, ages nine and four. “It hurt, yo,” Safira Merriman, 30, said in a Facebook post describing the incident.
The identity issue playing out in election debates and in courtrooms is now being felt in the streets, shopping malls and on social media, as disparaging remarks and even outright assaults draw attention to a charged political environment.
Categories: Americas, Canada, Women, Women's right