Last week, the mother a student from Frankfurt am Main in central Germany told a harrowing story. After her daughter struggled with bullying in school from Muslim girls, the headmaster suggested a simple change — just adopt the Muslim practice of wearing a face-veil or “hijab.”
“My daughter was so massively bullied in her school in Frankfurt am Main by Muslim girls that we had to take her out of school for protection,” the mother told the German newspaper Bild.
The mother said her daughter was harassed for a few reasons. “She had blond hair, no headscarf, has a German-Hebrew name — and we are Christians!” the mother said.
“My daughter broke down nervously in fifth grade,” she continued. “She had bruises and massive fear of going to school.”
The headmaster’s response? “Your daughter does not have to say she is German. Besides, you can give her a headscarf!”
This proved to be the last straw for the mother. “We’ve changed schools now and luckily things are going better now,” she said.
The idea that a young Christian German girl with blond hair and a German-Hebrew name would get mocked and beaten up by Muslim classmates in central Germany seems bad enough. The headmaster’s hijab response just made the bad situation worse.
Tragically, this is far from the first time women’s rights have been undermined in Germany, at the hands of Muslim migrants. Last year, a German judge acquitted a Turkish man of rape, ruling that his forced violent sex with a woman was not “culturally rape.”
While women in Iran are being imprisoned and tortured for the crime of removing a hijab in public and encouraging their sisters to do the same, it speaks volumes that a teacher in Germany would effectively abet Muslim bullying by suggesting the Christian girl simply adopt a Muslim practice to fit in.
Whether in Iran or in Germany, women should not be forced to wear a hijab, by law or by bullying. While it is important for Muslim women to have the religious freedom to wear the hijab in public, that does not extend to forcing other women to also adopt this practice.
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