Elham Asaad Buaras
Two members of the Danish government-appointed Forgotten Women Struggle Commission have reversed a recommendation to ban hijab-wearing in all primary schools.
The 10-member commission, appointed by the Social Democratic government, recommended a ban on young girls wearing the hijab.
The recommendation received negative press coverage from educators and the public. In a poll by news agency Ritzau, 56.1 per cent were against a hijab ban in schools.
A significantly lower proportion of 28.2 per cent said ‘yes’ to such a ban while 15.7 per cent answered, ‘don’t know’.
The results come from a survey of 1,013 representative residents of Denmark over the age of 18, conducted between August 29 and September 1.
The commission’s final report will not be ready until next year, but it made nine recommendations last month to the government on how “Denmark can ensure that women with minority backgrounds can enjoy the same rights and freedoms as other Danish women.”
In its report, the commission argued that wearing the hijab marks Danish Muslim girls as differing from other Danish girls.
“We all become wiser in this debate, including those of us who sit on the commission,” one member of the commission, former headteacher Lise Egholm, told broadcaster Denmark Radio.
Egholm said she now believes that older primary schoolgirls should be exempted from a potential ban since some girls wear the hijab after they start their first period.
She also said discussion of the issue had turned into a “media storm”.
Commission member Kefa Abu Ras, a co-founder of the organisation Sisters Against Violence and Control, wrote on Facebook that she no longer supports the measure. Instead, she said, the hijab should just be discouraged in primary schools rather than banned.
Egholm, on August 26, became the second commission member to change her stance. She also called for the commission to meet to discuss the matter. The overall purpose of the commission is to make recommendations on “how we in Denmark can ensure that women with minority backgrounds can enjoy the same rights and freedoms as other Danish women”.
Christina Krzyrosiak Hansen, head of the commission and Social Democratic Mayor for the municipality of Holbæk supports an outright ban saying, “When you are a little girl and go to elementary school, you should be allowed to be a child.
If you then, when you are an adult, later in life decide you want to wear a headscarf—doing it of your own free will—we won’t get involved.”
“We think it is fine. But we must talk openly about what is happening. There can’t be anyone who believes that an eight-year-old girl puts it on herself,” she told Ritzau.
Hansen rejected the suggestion that such a ban would impinge on constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom.
“We are not placing a bind on religious freedom. That was very important for the commission. We are not doing that. That’s not what we are addressing. We’re not addressing whether we are for or against headscarves,” she said.
Neither the government nor the parliament is compelled to follow the commission’s recommendations.
The right-wing Danish People’s Party has stated that it wants to prevent primary school students from wearing the hijab.
“Of course, you shouldn’t wear a headscarf when you live in Denmark. It is oppressive for women. Nobody is going to tell me that a ten-year-old girl decides for herself that she wants to wear a headscarf,” DF immigration and integration spokesperson Pia Kjærsgaard told Ritzau.
“The scarf is a very clear religious symbol, which does not at all show that you belong in Denmark. We do not wear headscarves in Denmark,” Kjærsgaard said.
DF has attempted to introduce similar bans in the past but has always failed to gather parliamentary support.
The Radikale Venstre (Social Liberals) opposes a hijab ban, pointing out that it could further stigmatise women who choose to wear the hijab later in life.
“We think it is difficult to fight social control with social control,” Social Liberal Leader, Sofie Carsten Nielsen, said.
“After all, that’s what this would be if you forbade some girls to wear certain clothes. That is also a control that the state exercises,” she said.
Besides a hijab ban at schools, the commission recommends that groups at preschools “reflect the population” and courses on Danish ways of raising children for “selected minority ethnic parents.”
