Scarf ban still a barrıer for career-minded women

The ban affects us psychologically,” noted 23-year-old Ayşenur Bozkurt, who said she has been wearing the headscarf for nine years.

Bozkurt, a translator by profession and a graduate student, said she has faced bitter disappointments because of the headscarf ban while looking for a job and sent in her curriculum vitae — that included a headscarved photo of her — last year to a number of companies, all private. She did not apply to state offices because she already knew she had no chance of working for the state with a headscarf. “One day I received a job offer from a university. They probably had no idea about my headscarf. When I told them about it on the phone, they withdrew their offer, wished me a good day and just hung up.”

In Turkey, state offices do not hire headscarf-wearing women. Covered women are also denied employment in most private companies despite the lack of a law that prohibits the use of the headscarf in private businesses. They are not elected to Parliament, either. A scarf ban was imposed for many years on university campuses, and it ended only recently.

A recent study conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) found that while up to 70 percent of Turkey’s women wear the headscarf, only a small percentage of women in the workplace are headscarved. In professional life, headscarved women are usually expected to “make concessions” if they want to be employed by companies, which can entail agreeing to work for a low salary or in a lower position or even taking off the headscarf if necessary.

Nihal Sağdıç, a 23-year-old woman who wears a headscarf and who agreed to talk to us using a false name, said she worked for a private company as an architect for one year but is unemployed at the moment. She wants to work for a municipal office in İstanbul where the use of the headscarf is allowed. “This was not my dream when I graduated from university, but I have to do it now,” she noted. She also added that she applied to more than 15 private companies with a CV that included a photo of her with a headscarf, but that none of them agreed to meet her. “I wanted to try my chances with a CV that did not include a photo. Then I received offers from some companies. When I went in for an interview with one of the companies, they refused to talk to me. They gave me a form to fill in and said they would call me later. But they did not,” Sağdıç explained.

Another headscarved woman, who identified herself as Nadide, complained that she was offered a lower salary than her colleagues who do not wear the headscarf. “The employer believes that you need him and the job. And he sees you as a source of ‘cheap labor.’ I am not sure he would offer such a low salary to a woman who does not wear the headscarf or a man,” she stated.

The findings of a report belong to a four-day workshop of a European Media Encounter program titled “Media, Intercultural Dialogue and Fight Against Discrimination — Cross-reports from Turkey,” a joint effort by the Council of Europe’s “Speak Against Discrimination” campaign and the Intercultural Cities program under the Turkish chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

When the headscarf ban was imposed in universities for the first time in 1997, some headscarved students refused to take off their head coverings and dropped out, some women took off their headscarves and continued to attend school, while a small group of covered women were able to go abroad to continue their studies. Every one of these women suffered in one way for their choice.

But no sociological or statistical study has been conducted to date on the extent of the negative effects of the ban on society.

Highlights of scarf ban in Turkey

The notorious ban on the use of the Muslim headscarf has been a matter of contention in Turkey. The Republic of Turkey has traditionally maintained a secular identity. The strong military has opposed the idea of the free use of the headscarf out of concern that the religious garment would erode the country’s secular order.

After the 1980 coup d’état, a regulation clearly defined the permissible clothing and appearances of staff working in state offices, including the stipulation that the hair of civil servants must be uncovered. Starting then, headscarved women were denied the right to be employed by the state. The ban extended its scope to universities in 1997 when military generals ousted a coalition government led by a conservative party. Thousands of students were not allowed onto university campuses with a headscarf due to the ban.

Politicians have since failed to reach a compromise on how to end the headscarf ban. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) attempted to revoke the ban in 2008 but failed due to strong opposition from other political parties. The party barely escaped closure due to its anti-ban attempt. In October of this year, the Higher Education Board (YÖK) sent a circular to universities across Turkey, advising them not to enforce the headscarf ban. Either willingly or unwillingly, university administrations have been allowing headscarved students on campuses since then.

Yet, a de facto ban on the use of the Muslim headscarf remains in place in the workplace, that is to say in all state institutions and in most private companies. In mid-August, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) asked Turkey to end its discrimination against headscarf-wearing women, arguing that the ban on the use of the headscarf has a negative impact on women’s participation in such fields as education, work, health and the political and public spheres. Turkey became a signatory to CEDAW in 1985.