It was on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon this summer, while I was walking along Chatham High Street, when I became the victim of Islamophobia .

I’d been running errands when a group of children, no older than 10, walked by me and shouted: ‘Got a bomb under your mop?’.

I was stunned by their blatant, unashamed racism – and yet I didn’t do or say anything in my defence.

Partly because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of a reaction, but also because I know that when you’re a visibly Muslim woman, a comeback can be filled with risk.

So instead of responding, I kept going about my day as if nothing had happened.

People around me were oblivious as they walked past. I wondered had we reached a point where incidents like this have made people desensitised?

This wasn’t the f

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