Why burqas are wrong

After France, Belgium was the next country to ban full-face veils in A woman wearing a veil can be liable to pay fines to the tune of 1, euros, and can be jailed for up to seven days. Other countries where some sort of legislation against full-face veils exists include Chad, Cameroon, Turkey and Switzerland. Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines. Mehr Gill Australia beat Pakistan to reach the finals Explained: Who is Devasahayam, the first Indian layman to be conferred sainthood?

The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards. Tags: burqa ban Express Explained France. Trending 'One last heist Women who actually wear the burqa are not invited to speak about their experiences or state their preferences in this debate.

On this point, Islamic fundamentalists and panicked western conservatives are in absolute agreement: Muslim women are provocative and deserve to be treated as a threat to masculine pride.

I know Muslim women who regard even the simple hijab as an object of oppression and have sworn never to wear one again. I also know Muslim women who wear headscarves every day as a statement both of faith and of political defiance. There is no neutral fashion option for a woman of Islamic faith — either way, men in positions of power will feel entitled to judge, shame and threaten.

Either choice risks provoking anger and violence from someone with an opinion about what your outfit means for them. The important thing is the autonomy that comes with still having a choice.

A law which treats women like children who cannot be trusted to make basic decisions about their bodies and clothing is a sexist law; a law that singles out religious minorities and women of colour as especially unworthy of autonomy is a racist, sexist law.

Instituting racist, sexist laws is a good way to win back the votes of racist, sexist people, but, again, a dreadful way of protecting women. In practice, a burqa ban, even the partial version proposed by Merkel which will most likely be hard to enforce under German constitutional law, will directly impact only a few thousand people in the west.

Those people are women of colour, many of them immigrants or foreigners, people whose actual lives are already of minimal importance to the state except on an abstract, symbolic level, as the embodiment of a notional threat to white Christian patriarchy. The security argument is even more farcical: border guards are already able to strip people of their clothes, underwear and dignity if they get the urge.

Banning the burqa might make me feel less anxious. It would not, however, improve the lives of the women who actually wear it. Please give now to support our work. Human Rights Watch. Donate Now. Take Action. Join Us. Give Now. Your tax deductible gift can help stop human rights violations and save lives around the world. More Reading. February 26, Report. August 5, Report. May 6, Report. Protecting Rights, Saving Lives Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people in 90 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice.

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