Rhon­dor Dowlat

A Mus­lim woman yes­ter­day won a land­mark judg­ment against a se­cu­ri­ty firm for dis­crim­i­na­tion on the ba­sis of her re­li­gious be­liefs.

Giselle Glaude, 31, of St Joseph, wore her hi­jab (Mus­lim head cov­er­ing) in the Tri­bunal Court of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion in Ch­agua­nas as judge/chair­man Ra­j­man­lal Joseph ruled in her favour against her for­mer em­ploy­ers, Qual­i­ty Se­cu­ri­ty Body­guard Ser­vices Lim­it­ed.

She was award­ed $150,000 by Joseph with an in­ter­est rate of six per cent per an­num from the date of the fil­ing of the com­plaint to pay­ment. The oth­er two lay as­ses­sors were Leela Ramdeen and Har­ri­dath Ma­haraj.

The case stemmed from al­le­ga­tions made by Glaude that she was dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny.

On March 26, 2012, Glaude was dis­missed as a se­cu­ri­ty guard for fail­ing to wear the ap­proved uni­form. She was ac­cused of mod­i­fy­ing the uni­form by wear­ing a hi­jab short­ly af­ter be­com­ing a Mus­lim on Ju­ly 9, 2011.

The se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny said Glaude had vi­o­lat­ed its uni­form code, which said the uni­form was ap­proved by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and from which they did not wish to de­vi­ate.

When Glaude re­fused to com­ply with in­struc­tions not to wear the hi­jab, the com­pa­ny said it con­sid­ered her re­fusal to re­move her hi­jab to be an act of gross mis­con­duct.

The com­mis­sion had heard that on Ju­ly 27, 2007, Glaude was as­signed to work at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mount Hope. On Ju­ly 9, 2011, she con­vert­ed to Is­lam and in Oc­to­ber 2011 she be­gan wear­ing the hi­jab.

Some­time in Au­gust 2011, Glaude had a con­ver­sa­tion with Col­in Lange, the firm's op­er­a­tions su­per­vi­sor, ask­ing whether ishe could to wear the hi­jab while on du­ty.

She was told she was free to wear any gar­ment in ac­cor­dance with her re­li­gious be­lief. Af­ter that con­ver­sa­tion, Glaude be­gan wear­ing the hi­jab.

How­ev­er, on Feb­ru­ary 27, 2012, Glaude was asked to at­tend a meet­ing with Lange and was in­struct­ed to write a let­ter to the Hu­man Re­source De­part­ment con­cern­ing her re­li­gion and her need to wear the hi­jab.

On March 5, 2012, she was told if she con­tin­ued to wear the hi­jab on du­ty, which con­flict­ed with the uni­form code, she would have to make oth­er arrange­ments re­gard­ing her em­ploy­ment.

Ten days lat­er Claude was served a "no­tice of in­tend­ed ac­tion" for gross mis­con­duct.

On March 22, 2012, she at­tend­ed a dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing, af­ter which she was in­formed that she was found guilty of the charge and was ter­mi­nat­ed. The for­mal ter­mi­na­tion let­ter was dat­ed March 26, 2012.

In de­liv­er­ing his judg­ment yes­ter­day, Joseph said there was not one scin­til­la of ev­i­dence of­fered by the se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny to sug­gest that any ef­forts were made to get any sort of clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty that wear­ing the hi­jab with the ap­proved uni­form would be un­ac­cept­able.

"To be sure, the re­spon­dent did not of­fer to the tri­bunal any ev­i­dence, oral or writ­ten, to the ef­fect that the uni­form that was said to be ap­proved by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was in fact so ap­proved," Joseph said.

He said it ap­peared to the tri­bunal that the haste with which the dis­ci­pli­nary ma­chine was en­gi­neered and the fact that the com­pa­ny ut­ter­ly failed to ad­vise Glaude of her right to ap­peal the ter­mi­na­tion de­ci­sion, it was high­ly sug­ges­tive the com­pa­ny want­ed to get rid of Glaude for adopt­ing the Mus­lim faith.

'I got an­swers in Is­lam'

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian af­ter her vic­to­ry, Glaude, who was all smiles, ad­vised women who were in a po­si­tion like she was in to "stand firm in your be­lief. Don't let any­body de­ter you."

Speak­ing on the trau­ma she went through af­ter her ter­mi­na­tion, Glaude, who was the sole bread­win­ner in her house­hold, said she felt "heart­bro­ken" and "black­list­ed." She said turn­ing to Is­lam, for her, was a spir­i­tu­al up­lift­ment.

"Ever since a child I was in­ter­est­ed in find­ing out what Is­lam is all about. I was look­ing for a fam­i­ly and for com­fort and I found it in Is­lam. I had a lot of ques­tions and I got my an­swers when I ac­cept­ed the faith," Glaude said.

She added that giv­en her ex­pe­ri­ence when she con­vert­ed, she was adamant not to turn her back on her new­ly-found faith.

Now that Glaude had stood her ground and fought for her re­li­gious be­lief, she said her next step would be one that she would have to care­ful­ly think about.

"Ac­tu­al­ly, just as the sis­ters in the mosque sup­port­ed me every step of the way, I think I will now be look­ing at sup­port­ing women who are fac­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion like I did.

"I am al­so sure that some of them may not even re­alise that they are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against and I want to be here for them," Glaude said.

Glaude's at­tor­ney, Ja­son Nathu, said he hoped the case would en­cour­age more peo­ple to come for­ward be­fore the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal.

"There are many groups in so­ci­ety who are dis­crim­i­nat­ed against and I am thank­ful that there are more av­enues to ac­cess jus­tice," he added.