Background 's decree dated April 2, 1892, prohibited by the wearing of
çarşaf.
Mustafa Kemal had the ambition to make Turkey a new modern
secular nation. In 1925, the Turkish government introduced a new Family Law modelled after the Swiss Family Law, and in the same year, it banned
Mahmud II's reformation hat for men to be Westernise, Mustafa Kemal viewed modern clothing as an essential visual symbol of the new secular nation and encouraged both women and men to wear modern fashion, but in contrast to his law against traditional wear for men, he never introduced a ban against the hijab. However, he appeared in public with his wife
Latife Uşaki unveiled and arranged formal state receptions with dinner and dance where men and women could mingle, to encourage women to leave seclusion and adopt modern clothing, and in the mid-1920s, upper- and middle class Turkish women started to appear unveiled in public. led to heated controversy at times in Turkey. Specifically, it resulted in a clash between those favoring the secular principles of the state, such as the
Turkish Armed Forces, and religious conservatives, including
Islamists. In the early 21st century, the
Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reversed this, and worked to "raise a pious generation" in Turkey, which in turn created a backlash, even lowering the religiosity among the youth.
Banning of headscarves The Turkish government had outlawed the wearing of headscarves by women who work in the
public sector in 1982. The ban applied to
teachers,
lawyers,
parliamentarians, and others working on state premises. The ban on headscarves in the
civil service and
educational and
political institutions was expanded to cover non-state institutions. Female
lawyers and
journalists who refused to comply with the ban were expelled from public buildings such as courtrooms and
universities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of university students wearing headscarves increased substantially and in 1984, the first widespread application of the headscarf ban came into effect at universities, but throughout the 1980s and 1990s the ban was not uniformly enforced and many students were able to graduate. The headscarf ban in public spaces, including schools and universities (public and private), courts of law, government offices and other official institutions, was only for students, workers and public servants. Hence, mothers of pupils or visitors had no problems at all entering the primary schools, but they were not able to work as teachers. Similarly, at the courts of law, the ban only involved judges, attorneys, lawyers and other workers. Wearing headscarves in photos on official documents like licenses, passports, and university enrollment documents was also prohibited. Universities and schools refused to register women students unless they submitted ID photographs with bared hair and neck. A regulation dated 16 July 1982, specified that: ''the clothing and appearances of personnel working at public institutions; the rule that female civil servants' head must be uncovered''. An interpretation of this law in 1997 extended the ban to the wearing of headscarves in all universities in Turkey. The debate over headscarves in universities was the most contentious of all and was an important element in the early 21st century
politics of Turkey.
Education From 1997 to 2013, the Turkish military banned headscarves from all tertiary educational institutions on the ground that they were incompatible with secularism. This ban was lifted after 2013, but there was still a great divide between women who wore headscarves and those who did not when it came to attaining an education. From 2003, when the
Justice and Development Party and
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gained power, they stated that they promoted education for women with programs such as "Hey Girls, Let's Go To School". According to journalist
Aslı Aydıntaşbaş Like many of those that came before him, along with the history of Turkey that dates back to the ancient Ottoman Empire, which was an Islamic nation, women were seen as wives and mothers, not individuals who were meant to receive an education from any institution. Turkish society was a patriarchal society, and because of that, education for women was not popular amongst the public. The acquisition of education for headscarved women, along with the fact that although the ban has been lifted, it is still difficult for these women to receive an education, is all a part of Erdoğan's agenda to promote Islamic beliefs and practices in Turkey. This idea of keeping women as housewives and mothers, not individuals who can obtain an education, is a prime example of what the Turkish prime minister advocates called "Sunni Muslim Domination.". The professor did add, however, that headscarved women generally experienced difficulty in obtaining positions as teachers, judges, lawyers, or doctors in the public service (ibid.). More recent or corroborating information on the headscarf ban in the public service could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. The London-based
Sunday Times reported that while the ban was officially in place only in the public sphere, many private firms similarly avoided hiring women who wore headscarves (6 May 2007). MERO noted that women who wore headscarves may have had more difficulty finding a job or obtaining a desirable wage (Apr. 2008), although this could not be corroborated among the sources consulted by the
Research Directorate.
Medical care According to the Sunday Times, headscarves were banned inside Turkish
hospitals, and doctors were not allowed to don a headscarf on the job (6 May 2007). Nevertheless, MERO reported that secularists saw Turkey's administration as having a hidden religious agenda (The New York Times 19 February 2008; Washington Post 26 February 2008), doctors in some public hospitals entered the premises wearing headscarves (MERO Apr. 2008). The professor of political science at
Boğaziçi University in Turkey stated that, in addition to never having come across any cases where women wearing headscarves had been denied access to medical care in private or public medical centres, he felt it would be unlikely that this would occur (12 April 2005). The Immigration Counsellor at the Embassy of Canada in
Ankara stated that "women who wear headscarves have full access to medical care" (27 April 2005), though news reports and
NGO reports to the
UN confirmed that women wearing the headscarf had been “denied medical care in Turkish hospitals." the
white Turks attitude was infested with racism and classism: black Turks were "the underdogs": Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has "proudly" called himself "a black Turk". Aslı Aydıntaşbaş and Büşra Cebeci wrote that "uncovering", i.e. no longer wearing the headscarf, was a rite of passage for many women escaping "from small-town conservatism" in Turkey, and "may signal the beginning of a movement in the opposite direction" of Erdoğan's Islamization. While the Turkish state pressured women not to wear headscarves, often family and society pressured women in the opposite direction. Cebeci described the "immense pressure" women felt from relatives "in most cases" when they tried to stop wearing headscarves – Aydintasbas saw the political forces working to ban hijab and to force women to wear hijab as mirror images, both oppressing women; and both facing resistance. • In May 1999, the ban on headscarves in the public sphere hit the headlines when
Merve Kavakçı was prevented from taking her oath in the
National Assembly because she wore a headscarf. She was the newly elected MP of Istanbul of the pro-Islamist
Virtue Party, and she refused demands to leave the building. The secular opposition members protested by chanting 'out' for 30 minutes, and the then prime minister
Bülent Ecevit accused her of violating the principles of secularism. A state prosecutor investigated whether she might be put on trial for provoking religious hatred. She received much support from
Iran, by the
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, and hundreds of women demonstrating in support of the deputy. • In 2000, Nuray Bezirgan, a Turkish female student, wore a headscarf at her college final exams. A Turkish court sentenced her to six months in jail for "obstructing the education of others". • In October 2006, Turkish president
Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to allow
AKP politicians whose wives wore headscarves to a ball marking Turkish independence, saying it would compromise and undermine the separation of mosque and state in Turkey. • In late 2008 CHP (
Republican People's Party) leader
Deniz Baykal surprised supporters by allowing those who wear the çarşaf (
chador) to become members of the party. The surprising move was viewed as a strategy to attract conservative voters to the party. Some criticized Baykal's move as an attempt to move the party towards the right. • In March 2009, Kıymet Özgür, who wore the çarşaf (
chador) was attacked by CHP members when she tried to get into an election bus of mayoral candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Istanbul. It was later reported that she had disguised herself to test the party's new initiative.
Process of lifting the ban Prime Minister
Erdoğan campaigned in his victorious
2007 campaign with a promise of lifting the longstanding ban on headscarves in public institutions. However, as the Turkish deputies voted in Parliament, tens of thousands protested outside in favor of the ban. On February 7, 2008, the Turkish Parliament passed an amendment to the constitution, allowing women to wear the headscarf in Turkish universities, arguing that many women would not seek an education if they could not wear the headscarf. The main political party, the
Justice and Development Party, and a key opposition party, the
Nationalist Movement Party claimed that it was an issue of human rights and freedoms. The Parliament voted 403–107 (a majority of 79 per cent) in favor of the first amendment, which was inserted into the constitution stating that everyone has the right to equal treatment from state institutions. However, the move resulted in opposition throughout Turkey. The country's educational board and numerous universities vowed to defy the new law. In addition, the main pro-secular, opposition party of the
Republican People's Party asked the constitutional court to block the new law passed and viewed it as a move towards an
Islamic state. Thousands of demonstrators supporting the ban also gathered near the Parliament against the move by the government. After the failed attempt at lifting the ban against headscarves in public institutions in 2008, the
Justice and Development Party arranged constitutional amendments in 2010 that would lead to lifting the ban against wearing headscarves in Turkish educational institutions. With the support of the
Council of Higher Education, the
Justice and Development Party was able to persuade women who wore headscarves to return to school.
More ban liftings Headscarves had become a focal point of the conflict between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the secularist establishment. The ruling was widely seen as a victory for Turks who claimed this maintained Turkey's separation of state and religion. In 2013, the headscarf ban in public institutions was lifted through a decree. The ban on wearing hijab in high schools ended in 2014. In March 2017, the Ministry of Defence in Ankara announced a change in rules to allow women in the armed forces to wear headscarves with their uniforms, which sparked concerns from secularists over creeping
Islamisation of the military. In October 2022, ahead of the 2023 election, Turkey's government and opposition both pledged legal steps to establish women's right to wear Islamic headscarves, bringing an issue that previously caused severe splits back to the forefront of political discourse. == See also ==