Sanjida’s father, an orthodox Muslim man, would never believe that his daughter has freed herself from the Islamic dress code he had imposed on her since she was a teenager. A few years ago, she stepped out of their home with her head covered like on every other day, but she did so in the knowledge that she would never have to do so again once she left Bangladesh to start her life abroad.
“I tricked my father into thinking that I cover my hair whenever I step out of the house. However, I used to remove it the moment I hopped on to a bus, and nothing felt more liberating than that,” Sanjida told Dhaka Tribune.
For some years, Sanjida followed the Islamic dress code without much dissent as she had been told that breaking it would condemn her to hell. When she grew older and began to question this belief, her father was irate.
ReutersHe threatened to imprison her at home and stop her schooling if she ever uncovered her hair. As a result, she pretended to continue wearing the hijab and began her secret defiance.
Many other women in Bangladesh also feign obedience by wearing hijabs, all the while longing for the day when they can become independent and cast the head covering aside.
“I always loved to feel the wind in my hair. It felt very liberating to let my hair loose. People need to understand how humiliating it is for a woman to be forced to wear a hijab,” said Sanjida.
The hijab and other parts of the Islamic dress code for women have been stirring debate for decades throughout the world. Bangladesh is not among countries with a Muslim majority population where women are obliged to follow the Islamic dress code by law. However, a significant number of women are pressured to follow the code by their families.
ReutersRefusing to wear head coverings often leads to these women being shamed by their families, neighbours and strangers.
A recent study conducted by Manusher Jonno Foundation and DNET found that 44% of people think women who wear veils or hijabs are “good girls,” and 66% think women who follow religious rules are “good girls.”
On the other hand, 63% think that women who wear “western clothing” are “bad girls” and that they are shredding the fabric of society.
Recently, a video of a young woman being physically assaulted over her outfit at Narsingdi railway station went viral. The video shows a group of men and women threatening the woman and her friend for wearing jeans and a top. At one point, a woman in a veil tries to rip off the young woman’s clothes.
Tanha, a 10th grader in Chandpur, is frequently stopped by men in the village bazar for not covering her hair. One day, she was going to school with a friend who wears a burqa and was stopped by a neighbor.
“I was shamed for not wearing the burqa like my friend by my neighbor. This is just one of many incidents where I was harassed for not covering my hair,” she said.
“Most of the girls in my school wear some sort of headscarf, burqa, or niqab. Since I do not wear any of those coverings, I am labeled as a temptress who is trying to provoke boys,” said the 10th grader.
Her parents have been pushing her to cover her hair ever since she became a teenager. Although she continues to rebel, she is unsure of how much longer she can hold off the pressure from her parents.
AFPCanadian human rights activist Yasmine Mohammed, who has been advocating against forced hijab for a long time, told Dhaka Tribune that it is not easy for women to take off hijab in some conservative societies, even if there is no law for compulsory hijab.
“It is difficult for many women to take off the veil and other forms of Islamic dress because of the stigma attached to losing the veil. I would say women who have been forced to wear the hijab can try taking it off slowly and gradually. It might be a good trick to not get noticed,” she told this correspondent.
The High Court of Bangladesh issued an order on August 23, 2010, directing the government to ensure that women are not forced to wear the veil or other religious clothes in educational institutions and public offices.
Dr Nazia Manzoor, assistant professor of English at North South University, thinks that one noticeable characteristic of the era of the "War on Terror" is Western feminism's renewed interest in the veiled Muslim woman.
“The invasion in Afghanistan was characterized as a ‘feminist mission.’ Laura Bush's claim that we must protect our sisters in cover is yet another case of what Gayatri Spivak famously describes as white men saving brown women from brown men,” she told Dhaka Tribune.
“I find mainstream Western feminism's interest in the veiled Muslim women problematic on several accounts. One is that veiling doesn't represent all Muslim women. But more dangerous is the oversimplified claim that veiling is a liberatory practice and it is the Muslim woman's choice to veil, re-veil, and unveil,” she told Dhaka Tribune.
She thinks marking veiling as a liberatory practice, and only as a liberatory practice, effaces the vast reality of the lives of Muslim women elsewhere who do not have a choice in the matter.
“In the Bangladeshi context, we can supply countless anecdotal evidence just from observing the lives of women around us who have a complex relationship with the veil,” she told the correspondent.
“Some veil themselves because it is expected of them, some veil because they have started and now they are afraid to take it off,” she said.“Others wear it as a form of protection, hoping that it marks them as pious, honorable women, and thus will protect them from the male gaze or worse, male violence. I am not suggesting that veiling cannot be done at will, but I take issue with stopping the conversation at that -- that it is an agentic decision on the part of the wearer,” she told Dhaka Tribune.
