Baroness Cox, a cross-bench peer who in 2011 tabled the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill in the House of Lords, argues that sharia is clearly a parallel legal system. The previous government gave up trying to investigate sharia courts, claiming that they could not gain sufficient access. The current government has claimed that the injustice handed out to women by Muslim clerics in sharia courts (outlined in Equal and Free?, a report that contains evidence in support of Baroness Cox's Bill) can be dealt with by existing laws.

Another vociferous critic of sharia courts is Nazir Afzal, the chief prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in the North-West, who has described the phenomenon of sharia arbitrators who deal with cases of domestic violence as dangerous. Maryam Namazie, of One Law for All, believes that it is now seen as "perfectly acceptable" to defend sharia courts or gender segregation as "people's right to religion", even for some feminists, humanists and secularists. "This legitimisation means that institutions like the Law Society think nothing of endorsing sharia law," says Namazie. "What they don't realise is that they are institutionalising Islamist values."

Many British Muslims are critical of the British establishment's support for sharia. Tehmina Kazi, director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, says sharia councils should be penalised when they try to assume a legal status that they do not have. "I think a lot of people — both Muslim and non-Muslim — are not aware of these issues in any great detail, and do not feel equipped to publicly critique them. Raising awareness of these problems would encourage commentators who might otherwise feel too afraid to speak out."

It seems incredible that after more than four decades of feminism in the West so many on the Left are willing to sacrifice women's rights, in particular the rights of Muslim-born women, in the name of so-called religious freedom. Kate Smurthwaite, feminist activist and member of the National Secular Society, believes that all organised religion is detrimental to the rights of women. "Speaking out against sharia law in the UK is often viewed as racist, but nothing could be further from the truth," says Smurthwaite. "The first victims of sharia are Muslim women."

Rahilla Gupta is a member of Southall Black Sisters and an outspoken critic of religious fundamentalism. Gupta is aware of a number of cases where social workers have approached sharia court officials asking for "expert reports" when there are disputes over divorce and child custody. "Theoretically they are not involved in the mainstream legal system, so this calling of witnesses from sharia courts is very dangerous," says Gupta. "Some whites support sharia, thinking they are supporting Muslim women, but many of these women are completely opposed to religion within law in their lives because they have seen the damage it has done."

Just because some Muslim women argue that they should be allowed access to the sharia system does not mean we should let it become a part of British law. Habiba Jaan is the founder of Aurat, a support service for Muslim women in the West Midlands. She told me that only a decade ago she rarely heard of sharia courts, but now "they appear to be on every doorstep".