Recommends banning hijab in primary school
Earlier this year, a Danish government set up the «Commission for forgotten women», which focuses on minority women.
Well, the commission comes up with a recommendation to ban girls in primary school from wearing the hijab, writes Denmark’s Radio (DR).
According to the commission, the use of hij shows that Muslim girls are different compared to girls who are ethnically Danish.
Should apply to the entire primary school
The committee aims to investigate how to avoid social control of girls and women in immigrant environments.
– Our focus is to ensure that girls, who do not have the same freedom rights as the rest of us, get it. Something that takes many places is the issue of the hijab, and girls who wear it from an early age.
This is what commission leader Christina Krzyrosiak Hansen says to DR. Exactly how it should be implemented, she says, is up to Danish governments and national assemblies to decide.
– If you are in doubt as to whether this is a problem or not, I think you should visit a school in Denmark and talk to one of the girls that is about.
The ban on the hijab in primary school should cover the entire primary school, the commission believes. This means that private schools and Muslim independent schools must also prohibit their students from wearing the hijab.
There is no clear evidence
The final report from the committee will not come until 2023. Nevertheless, the commission has already reached a number of recommendations to the Danish government on how they can improve the lives of minority girls.
The Danish government is not obliged to follow the commission’s recommendations.
A similar ban on the hijab was introduced in France in 2004. Here, both teachers and students were banned from wearing religious symbols at school.
Associate Professor Brian Arly Jacobsen in the sociology of religion at the University of Copenhagen, tells DR that there is no clear evidence of such a ban releasing social control of Muslim girls.