Laiqa Bhatti, Surrey
When Ofsted announced that their inspectors will talk to primary school girls who wear hijabs a few days back in order to tackle ‘sexualisation of children’, it raised a lot of questions and debate. In a climate where Islamophobia and related hate crimes are rising, the hijab has been the go-to issue for the Far-Right. Yet it is shocking to see an Independent body such as Ofsted announcing plans that further alienate and discriminate against Muslims.
In the Holy Qur’an, the requirement for the hijab is only for those women who have reached full physical maturity, which most certainly does not apply to primary school girls. The reality is that age the Hijab is a symbolic piece of clothing that many young Muslim girls see their mothers, older sisters or other female role models in their life wear. Questioning them most likely would yield the answer along the lines of ‘because mummy does it’. I know I started wearing the hijab because of inspiring women around me. That is what children do, they mimic behaviours around them. My two-year-old son would run around in my headscarf, proud to be like mummy, and now half a year later, like daddy he proudly wears a hat on his head during prayer time. If he was to go to primary school in a hat, or if a Jewish boy wears his kippah, or a Sikh boy his turban, will they be questioned too?
The reasoning behind this proposition was even more disturbing as the chief inspector said the hijab could be interpreted as “sexualisation of young girls”. This alone displays the lack of awareness behind the hijab and its spiritual purpose. If anything, the hijab removes all kinds of sexualisation rather than form it. And as it does not even apply to young girls, besides wanting to be like mum or being proud of their religion, young, impressionable girls will be marginalised and interrogated on something that they themselves are not old enough to fully understand yet. If Ofsted, as an organisation was unable to understand the philosophy of the hijab, how do they expect little children to understand and furthermore convey it? When the focus of OFSTED should be on policies that create equality and inclusion of every culture and religion and as a result improve education standards, this implementation will create nothing but confusion, distress and marginalisation of Muslim girls simply due to their choice of wearing a hijab. Even with girls in secondary school, unless every pupil is questioned for their reasoning of their way of dressing either way, then it is discrimination based on religious beliefs.
In actual fact, sexualisation of children, inside and outside of school has been a very real issue for years is becoming an epidemic issue. Maria Miller, a senior Conservative MP reported a 71% increase in peer-on-peer abuse in schools in the past three years with more than 7,800 reported cases in 2016. [1]
This increase has been put down to unsupervised internet access from an early age meaning as many as 95% of year 7 boys having accessed pornography. [2] Combining this with the ever increasing sexualisation of women and the pressure on girls to conform to stereotypes witnessed on TV, internet, particularly social media, sexualisation of children as a result and the lack of victim support in schools is shocking and is not being addressed quickly or effectively despite the rise in this. Yet Ofsted is focused on looking to possibly ban the hijab in primary schools when, considering that only 5% of the UK population are Muslims, the number of little girls choosing to wear the Hijab is very small.
Voice of British Muslim Women 
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