Azerbaijan's headscarf row: Were the girls excluded from school asked what they think?

The clothing worn by Muslim girls has once again become a political controversy. In Azerbaijan, an amendment last month to uniform rules at state schools introduced requirements linked to the secular character of education. The text does not explicitly name the headscarf, yet reports of Muslim girls being turned away from schools, followed by the introduction this month of rules governing teachers’ clothing, have intensified the debate. The difference between what a regulation says and how schools enforce it matters profoundly to the children affected. Asking a girl to remove her headscarf before entering a school is not simply a question of dress. It raises a more fundamental question: can access to education depend on making religious identity invisible? New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters This debate should begin not with abstract arguments among adults, but with the girls standing at school gates. Decisions made in the name of secularism, religion or public order shape their everyday lives, educational opportunities and sense of belonging. The controversy is larger than one country’s school policy. Why does Muslim women’s clothing so often become a test of modernity, freedom and social progress? Ideological contest A headscarf can signify devotion, cultural belonging or personal identity. Where covering is compulsory, it can also become an instrument of coercion. None of these meanings can be presumed for every woman or girl. There is a contradiction when authorities claim to liberate women from religious pressures by imposing another rule about their bodies. Requiring a headscarf, or requiring its removal, arise in different historical and legal contexts - yet both demand scrutiny of whose choices count, whose voices are heard, and who has the authority to decide. For girls, this is especially urgent. Too often, a girl becomes a symbol of her family’s religious values or the state’s secular identity, rather than a person with her own developing convictions. No child should be reduced to a symbol in an ideological contest among adults. Instead of asking who gets to decide what Muslim girls wear, we should ask why their own voices are so rarely heard Secularism can help to ensure that children of different faiths learn together, without the state imposing religious beliefs. But institutional neutrality is not necessarily the same as demanding that students conceal individual religious identities. The distinction matters when a school’s dress rules affect attendance. Governments may regulate uniforms for reasons of equality, order and belonging. Those aims, however, cannot end the discussion. If a dress code excludes some children from classrooms, it raises a question about the conditions attached to their right to education. In Azerbaijan, the crucial test is not only the wording of the rules, but their applications and consequences. Officials, parents, religious authorities and commentators are all allowed to speak. Yet how often are the girls whose lives are being debated asked what they think? Listening to girls A rights-based approach to the headscarf issue should take into account both of the above aspects: the ways in which familial and social pressures can shape a child’s decisions, and the reality that removing an item of clothing under institutional pressure is not automatically an act of liberation. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises children’s right to express their views in matters affecting them, along with their freedoms of thought, conscience and religion, and their right to access education. These rights must be considered together. Listening to a girl is not the same as leaving her unprotected; protection should be attentive to her evolving capacities and circumstances. The world must stop trying to 'rescue' Muslim women Read More » States should not dismiss a girl’s beliefs in the name of education. Equally, a family’s religious preferences should not silence children. The task is to create conditions in which they can speak, receive support and continue learning. Excluding a girl from school because of her headscarf means more than losing a day of lessons. It can damage her relationships, confidence and sense of belonging, especially during adolescence, when identity matters deeply. Schools should be places where children encounter differences and learn to live with them. If the stated aim of education is to help girls think independently, consider different worldviews and make their own decisions, then exclusion is a troubling way to pursue it. Girls’ freedom cannot be defended at the cost of their right to learn. What should be left at the school gates are not headscarves, but rather these exclusionary policies. Instead of asking who gets to decide what Muslim girls wear, we should ask why their own voices are so rarely heard. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.