The headscarf will be banned for children up to year 7. Photo: TT
A municipality in southern Sweden has voted to ban the Islamic headscarf in schools for children under the age of 13, in a first for Sweden.
The populist measure is part of a new 'integration plan' for the town of Staffanstorp, roughly 20km outside Malmö, which has been drawn up for by the centre-right Moderate Party and the populist Sweden Democrats.
"The headscarf is a symbol that women are not available. It's a sexualisation of women and it's unreasonable to do that to young girls," Christian Sonesson, the town's Moderate Party mayor, told the local Sydsvenskan newspaper. "I have nothing against adult women wearing headscarves, but these are small children, little girls."
The measure was voted through with seven votes in favour and four against on Wednesday afternoon.
Pierre Sjöström, a councillor for the town's Social Democrat opposition accused Sonesson of "lifting up a non-problem".
"It's just cosmetic. The Moderates don't even know if we have pupils who wear headscarves. This is a solution to a problem that we don't have," he told the newspaper.
Andreas Lindholm, a lawyer for the Swedish National Agency for Education told Swedish broadcaster SR that he believed the measure was religious discrimination and therefore contravened the law.
"We ruled that it is not permitted or compatible with religious freedom or discrimination laws to bringRead More – Source
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