CAIRO (Dispatches) – The Egyptian government has caused fury after announcing a ban on the wearing of the face-covering niqab in schools from the beginning of the next term on 30 September.
Education Minister Reda Hegazy said students would still have the right to choose whether to wear a headscarf, but insisted it must not cover their faces.
He also said that the child’s guardian should be aware of their choice, and that it must have been made without any outside pressure.
“Here, the role of the teachers of the Arabic language, religious education, and social and psychological education, will be to prepare the students psychologically to implement the ministry’s decision with all kindness and gentleness, taking into account the students’ psychological state and their age level,” he said in a statement.
There has been an ongoing debate over the wearing of the niqab in schools for many years in Egypt.
The garment has been worn by Muslim women for religious reasons across the world for centuries.
Rights group have argued that the Egyptian constitution protects religious freedoms and restricting the niqab is a violation of civil liberties.
A number of public and private institutions across Egypt already impose bans on the wearing of the niqab.
Cairo University has banned the wearing of face veils by teaching staff since 2015, a rule that was upheld by an Egyptian court in 2020.
M A, a 33-year-old marketing manager from Alexandria, believes the ban might lead some parents to transfer their children from mixed schools to female-only ones.
Writer F A, 45, from Cairo, thinks the government’s decision is the latest case of how women are used as “punching bags … socially, politically and economically”.
“Doesn’t matter under what pretext, or none … females always pull the short straw,” she said.
“A story as old as time and one that continues to be written and many applaud/decry it depending on which lens they have slapped on to see the world.”
She said: “With France banning the abaya and the burkini, Egypt following suit with the niqab ban and before that the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade and the Taliban continuing to severely constrain and constrict females from basically living – the policing of women’s bodies continues.”
I A, a 33-year-old civil engineer, also expressed support for women wearing niqab at schools “as it is part of everyone’s freedom”.
“Egypt is a Muslim country,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that he believed it would be difficult to erase the country’s identity with such a decision.