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Human Rights Watch
Direct Link to Full Report:
Discrimination in the Name of Neutrality
Headscarf Bans for Teachers and Civil
Servants in
February 26, 2009
(Berlin) - German state bans on
religious symbols and clothing for teachers and other civil servants
discriminate against Muslim women who wear the headscarf, Human Rights Watch
said in a report released today.
The 67-page report, "Discrimination
in the Name of Neutrality: Headscarf Bans for Teachers and Civil Servants in
Germany," is based on extensive research over an eight-month
period. It analyzes the human rights implications of the bans and their
effect on the lives of Muslim women teachers, including those who have been
employed for many years. It says that the bans have caused some women to give
up their careers or to leave Germany, where they have lived all their lives.
"These laws in Germany
clearly target the headscarf, forcing women who wear it to choose between
their jobs and their religious beliefs," said Haleh Chahrokh, researcher
in the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. "They
discriminate on the grounds of both gender and religion and violate these
women's human rights."
Half of Germany's 16 states
(Länder) - Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Bremen, Hesse, Lower Saxony,
North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saarland - have laws prohibiting public
school teachers (and other civil servants in several states) from wearing the
headscarf at work. The laws were all introduced in the last five years,
following a 2003 Constitutional Court ruling that restrictions on religious
dress are only permissible if explicitly laid down in law. The other eight
German states have no such restrictions.
Some of the laws allow some
exemptions for Christian and "Western" cultural traditions. None of
the laws explicitly target the headscarf, but parliamentary debates and
official explanatory documents prior to their introduction make clear that the
headscarf is the focus. Every court case about the restrictions (the most
recent ruling was on January 26, 2009, on a case in Baden-Württemberg) has
concerned the headscarf issue.
"The claim that these
restrictions don't discriminate doesn't stand up," said Chahrokh,
"In practice, the only people affected by them are Muslim women who wear
the headscarf."
Human Rights Watch has
repeatedly criticized governments such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran
when they force women to wear religious clothing. But laws such as those in
German states, which exclude women who wear the headscarf from public
employment, run afoul of the same international standards, undercutting
women's autonomy, their right to privacy, self expression and religious
freedom in a similar way.
The research for the report
included interviews with Muslim women in Germany affected by the ban. It
documents the profound effect of the bans on women's lives. The laws in all
eight states effectively prohibit women who wear the headscarf from working
as teachers. Teachers wearing the headscarf have been told to remove it and
been have subject to disciplinary action if they refused.
If a teacher refuses to remove
her headscarf and subsequently is unsuccessful in court proceedings, she runs
the risk of losing her civil servant status and of being removed from her
teaching position. Muslim trainee teachers cannot find employment as public
school teachers after successful completion of their education unless they
remove their headscarves.
State officials justify the
restrictions on the basis that teachers have a duty to ensure that schools
remain neutral on questions of religion and ideology. But there is no
evidence that the teachers' conduct violated that duty. Instead, the bans are
based on the notion that merely wearing the headscarf places neutrality at
risk.
"People should be judged
on the basis of their conduct, not views imputed to them by virtue of a
religious symbol they wear," said Chahrokh. "If there are concrete
concerns about individuals, they should be addressed through ordinary
disciplinary procedures, on a case-by-case basis."
Some of the teachers affected
told Human Rights Watch that they had offered to wear alternatives to the
headscarf, such as large hats, or to tie the scarves in atypical styles, but
that these offers were rejected. As a result of the bans, some of the women
left their home states or Germany altogether, while others felt compelled to
remove their headscarf to keep their jobs, after years of studies and
investment in developing their skills. They complained of feeling alienated
and excluded, even though many have lived in Germany all their lives.
Proponents of restrictions on
the headscarf frequently argue that bans protect women from oppression and
empower them. The women interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had all
freely chosen to wear the headscarf. Even for women who are pressed to wear a
headscarf, but are able to become teachers, blocking access to their
profession will not protect them from oppression. Some affected women pointed
out that, far from empowering them, the bans had led to deterioration in
their social position. In the words of one woman: "As long as we were
cleaning in schools, nobody had a problem with the headscarf."
Human Rights Watch calls on
state governments to revise and repeal legislation on prohibition of
religious dress and symbols and ensure that their legislation and procedures
comply with Germany's international human rights obligations. The German
states should guarantee in particular that regulations do not discriminate on
grounds of gender or religion and that freedom of religion and expression are
fully protected.
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