They sympathize with the protests against the strict dress code for women in Iran, young women from Muslim families in the Netherlands. Because they struggle with ‘headscarf compulsion’. Farah, Fatima and the writer Lale Gül talk about their experiences. ‘It would make a huge difference if there was also support from the Islamic community.’
Wóéde’, felt Farah (21) when she recently saw in a video how 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested on September 13 in Iran. Amini refused to comply with the regime’s headscarf order and was taken away screaming. Amini ultimately paid the highest price for her act of resistance: she died, presumably from the injuries she sustained during the police interrogation.
Amini’s death sparked massive protests in Iran this week, which Farah follows with admiration. And with recognition. Even closer to home, girls and women lead oppressed lives, and Farah is one of them. She no longer wants to wear the headscarf, but taking it off has far-reaching consequences for her. And she is far from alone, she knows.
Farah was 13 years old when she started wearing a headscarf of her own free will. “As a child I felt pressure already,” she says. “And I knew that pressure would increase once I entered high school. Let me do it now, I thought, then I’ll be done with it. Of course my parents thought it was fantastic that I wore it of my own accord.’
After two years, she regretted her decision. In the 5th and 6th grade of her pre-university education she took philosophy, where she learned to ‘question things’. She realized that she not only wanted to get rid of her headscarf, but also had doubts about Islam. ‘But I can’t just go back on the choice I made as a child. Islam is clear about the headscarf: it is obligatory. So now I run the risk of being rejected by my family.’
Little control
The size of the group of women and girls in a similar situation to Farah is unknown. Research on this specific topic is lacking, and Safe Home, the government agency where victims and others can report incidents and suspicions of domestic violence and coercion, does not register reports of women who involuntarily wear a headscarf. People who are forced to wear a headscarf or under pressure often have little say in their choice of partner or freedom of movement, but if a report is received, it is registered under ‘domestic violence’ without mentioning the forced headscarf.
Just how much the battle for the headscarf can be part of a bigger fight between coercion and freedom is illustrated by a serious violent incident in December last year, when a 16-year-old Syrian girl was stabbed by her older brother. The outbreak of violence followed the victim’s statement that she no longer wanted to wear a headscarf and that she was working outside the home against her family’s moral standards. “I want to be who I want to be,” were her last words before her brother stabbed her with a knife. “This violence is part of the family system in which the suspect and the victim lived together,” the Public Prosecution Service said in a statement at the time. “The victim had to endure this because, in the eyes of her family, she was disobedient and showed immoral behavior.”
According to the Public Prosecution Service, which successfully demanded five years in prison against the brother for attempted manslaughter, there was therefore talk of ‘honour-related violence’: inflicting mental or physical violence on someone in order to restore or protect the family’s honor. This category is registered separately by Safe at Home. However, the motives for honour-related violence vary widely, which means that the reports (1,120 in the year 2021) do not provide clarity about the extent of the headscarf problem.
Secretly headscarf off
Farah has been secretly taking off her headscarf for a year now in the city where she currently lives and studies, far from her parental home. It feels good, she says. But the first time she went out on a night out without a headscarf, she experienced no sensation of freedom. “I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself. That night I cried for hours at home. Now I don’t recognize myself when I visit my family and wear a headscarf. It’s like I’m playing a little play.’
The fact that Farah knows few examples in her environment of women who hang their headscarves on the willows without a hitch in the family does not make her hopeful. She saw it happen publicly with Lale Gül, who wrote the autobiographical novel I’m going to live wrote about her struggle with her repressive family. Farah knows that Gül has paid for her novel and candid interviews with rejection by her family. And she knows how her community’s peers generally don’t react positively to Gül.
For Lale Gül himself, the burden is no longer bearable. In her columns she has been neglecting Islam-related topics for months. She also no longer gives lectures after they were regularly disrupted by screaming visitors. ‘Everything I wrote was forwarded to my parents,’ says Gül. ‘After every media appearance, a statement was magnified and the bullshit started again with all the threats and hate reactions. I just can’t take it anymore. I want to keep it quiet for now.’
She speaks sporadically to her brother and sister. Gül still has no contact with her parents. “I have made attempts at reconciliation, but they have failed. They still don’t agree with my lifestyle. Now that I live with my unbelieving boyfriend, that will not change for the time being. Maybe distance is better for now too.’
Social boycott
For Gül, the Iranian Mahsa Amini is therefore a ‘martyr’ for religiously and culturally oppressed Muslim women worldwide. ‘It is true that she stands for the struggle of the oppressed Muslim woman in the Middle East, but you would be surprised how many women in the Netherlands and Belgium report to me about all kinds of oppression. And how they subsequently lose their families and are socially boycotted when they speak out.’
According to Gül, there are hundreds of messages. She herself also had to deal with a ‘social boycott’ after the publication of her book. Even apparently progressive Muslims constantly questioned her story, she says, or pointed to stories of girls who did take off their headscarves without any problems. ‘But does my story and that of many other girls no longer matter? I found that very painful. It would make a huge difference if there was also support from the Islamic community.’
Laila Ait Baali (39), director of Dutch Gender Platform WO=MEN, is more than happy to advocate for young adults such as Lale Gül and Farah. According to her, the fact that Ait Baali wears a headscarf voluntarily does not mean that she does not stand up for women who are forced to wear it. ‘I don’t want to be played out against other women, but fight side by side for what we all essentially want: to be yourself visibly.’
According to Ait Baali, the lack of support from the Muslim community can partly be explained by the hostile sentiments that arose in society after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. ‘The Islamic community closed its ranks. Only the positive sides of Islam were allowed to be emphasized in the public debate. The conversation about the lack of self-determination has become secondary to this. We have sacrificed the individual for the collective good. And we can blame ourselves for that.’
Ait Baali thinks that dress codes are more likely to lead to clashes between women and families with patriarchal ties today than, say, a decade ago. ‘The social and economic self-reliance of women of my generation is much stronger than that of the previous one. The more women contest power structures, the more severe the backlash and the tendency to exert more control.’
Fatima (24) also wore a headscarf since she was 13 years old. It was never her own choice: after her father saw her walking outside with her hair down, she was ordered to cover her head. She does not have many memories of that period. ‘I read somewhere that trauma makes you repress things. I only remember that my father was very angry when one day I stopped wearing a headscarf. But I really don’t remember how that day went.’
Her father has now resigned himself to it – her headscarf period is rarely talked about at home. But taking off the headscarf has not given her any more freedoms. Her father still controls her, she says resignedly, and he keeps instilling in her that his strict Islamic beliefs will never change. She still lives with her parents, but prefers to live independently. ‘I just don’t know where to start. My father does and arranges everything for his children. But that’s also just a way to restrain us. I have become very dependent.’
deep loneliness
Both Farah and Fatima experience deep loneliness, despite the good friendships they have. Farah has been seeing a psychologist for several years, but doesn’t think her situation is really understood. Fatima doesn’t even want to start therapy as long as she still lives with her parents. She is too afraid of the pain and damage that a psychologist may bring to the surface.
Nevertheless, although rare, there are opportunities in the Netherlands to seek specialized help. At Fier, a national center of expertise and treatment in the field of violence in dependent relationships, employees regularly receive signals about girls who are forced to wear a headscarf or under pressure. ‘We don’t have hard figures. The girls who come to us often struggle with other restrictions on freedom’, says team leader Refika Kesici-van Zwol.
Treatment includes family therapy, which parents are often willing to participate in, especially if it concerns minors. ‘We often see that mothers are stricter than fathers’, says Kesici-van Zwol. ‘I have no clear explanation for this, but I suspect that mothers bear more responsibility for the upbringing of the child and therefore experience more pressure from the community.’
In the past, Fatima has considered an arranged marriage. She often heard that girls escape their home situation in this way. With a marriage she would satisfy her parents and possibly get more control over her life, was her thought. But the risk of a mismatch, and therefore a divorce, Fatima thought too big. “No, the only thing you can do to be yourself is get out of your toxic environment.”
In many cases, leaving is the only option, concludes Lale Gül gloomily. ‘I experienced the time that I came out with my story as heavy. I even regretted it for a while. But I also cherish all the good memories. I received messages from women and gay men telling me that they felt inspired and cautiously embarked on an escape plan. That still touches me. But I would prefer to pass the baton now.’
‘Farah’ and ‘Fatima’ are not the real names of the women involved. For security reasons, they can only share their story on an anonymous basis.
