Introduction

According to the 2011 Australian census (ABS 2013), 227,191 Muslim women live in Australia—47.7% of the country’s Muslim population, which stood at 476,291 (or 2.2% of the whole). Of these, approximately two-thirds are under 25 years of age, and most (nearly 75%) are of North African, Middle Eastern, South and Southeast Asian, and Southern African backgrounds. The states of New South Wales and Victoria account for 78% of the total Muslim population.

Since the UK’s Runnymede Trust’s 1997 consultation paper …