AIBU for stopping a nice Muslim girl from showing my son her hair?

[BeSpoonyRedCat]

It was on Monday after school, 10 year old DS, a very traditional 10 year old Muslim girl, and another 10 year old girl from my son's school were in the living room.

DS asked to see the Muslim girl's hair and she was actually about to show him. I stopped her, nothing dramatic. I basically said no sweetie, don't do that. I wasn't loud. Both girls looked like they wanted to laugh while my son looked annoyed. After I finished dropping the girls home, my son was all moody.

Yesterday he was still moody and I asked why he's upset. He basically explained that the Muslim girl doesn't show any other kid her hair. I said there's a reason for that. And I'm thankful my son didn't ask me the reason because I actually don't know.

From my perspective, I was being a responsible adult with my son and 2 girls under my supervision. I don't know the ramifications of that little girl showing my son her hair. I don't know if her parents would have been upset with her. I don't know if her parents would have banned my son from being friends with her. But I'm still wondering if I was dramatic.

Am I being unreasonable?

I think you did exactly the right thing.

I'm a primary school teacher, currently teaching Year 5, and have two girls in my class who wear head coverings.
Only a couple of weeks ago, we needed to take the temperature via the ear of one of them. We asked her if she wanted to go into a separate room so she could move her hijab out of the way without boys potentially seeing her hair. She did.

It's just being respectful of other cultures. And now your son knows that it's impolite for an unrelated male to see a girls hair. It's just a manners lesson. If he wants to be huffy about it, that's his problem.

Bit just in this particular instance.
A boy or any other male has no right to ask a girl to remove any item of clothing that she doesn't want to remove for whatever reason she doesn't want to remove it. Any item whether it is a cardigan, a hat or underwear.

Out of interest, does your school do anything to try and determine how the girls feel about having to wear these head coverings? Any safeguarding policy?

Do you try and determine if there is coercion or conditioning or any other ulterior motive like in the case of Sara Sharif who was put in a hijab to hide regular signs of the physical abuse she suffered before her father ultimately murdered her?

Is it possible that lessons have not been learned from the circumstances that led to her murder? What has changed to stop it happening again?

Services in Surrey failed to identify that Sara was at risk of abuse and did not question unexplained bruising, the review, external found. This included a failure to properly investigate why Sara started wearing a hijab - that covered the bruising - for "fear of causing offence".
….
The review also found it was not properly investigated why Sara started wearing a hijab, saying a newly qualified occupational therapist was reluctant to mention it for "fear of causing offence". It was later learned that she wore one to hide her injuries.
Neighbours also said they "feared being branded as being racist" if they reported concerns.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmx0ge18d8o?app-referrer=deep-link

I wondered if that question might come up.

Short answer, we make no comment one way or the other about why a girl might be in a hijab. The same way we wouldn't ask why they'd decided to wear trousers that day, or a dress. It's just part of their clothing. And most are fairly casual about it at the primary school age.
The girl I referenced with the ear we needed access to, today she "lost her hijab in the lunch hall". When she came back with it, she chose not to put it back on for the rest of the afternoon.
The other little girl in my class who wears one, randomly had her ponytail sticking out the back of hers! Their desire to wear it, or how strict to be, seems to vary with their moods and the weather.

The school I work in is very multicultural, and represents the demographic of the wider town quite well.
There are thousands of girls in primary schools across the country who wear a head covering to school. And just because ONE little girl wore one to hide signs of abuse, to me, is no different to a girl wearing a cardigan to hide bruises on her arms.

What happened to little Sara is an absolute horror, and I'd be first in line to beat her father with a metal pole if I got the chance. There were a lot more missed moments in Sara's case, than just her suddenly turning up in a hijab. It would be grossly offensive to go quizzing every family who put their child in a hijab, just because it MIGHT be hiding signs of abuse.

And just because ONE little girl wore one to hide signs of abuse, to me, is no different to a girl wearing a cardigan to hide bruises on her arms.

The difference being that if it is hot and the girl refuses to take it off you may (should) question it. I am guessing no one suggests a girl takes her hijab off in the heat at your school? Is there a Health and Safety policy to prevent them overheating? Is their play in the sunshine restricted to prevent sunstroke?

It would be grossly offensive to go quizzing every family who put their child in a hijab, just because it MIGHT be hiding signs of abuse.

Isn’t that how safeguarding should work though? If you are aware that a particular item has been used to facilitate abuse and murder, surely some deep thought should be given as to whether it should continue to be used? How many cases would you find acceptable?

Are you satisfied that allowing these young girls to wear a hijab for whatever reason (it’s not an even religious requirement) is worth the risk of it happening again?

Interesting that you try and minimise the issues around her hijab though. It was found that it was quite an important part of hiding her injuries. It would only have taken one person to look at her properly and take the right course of action and she might have escaped months of torture and be alive today. But no one looked under her hijab or questioned why she never took it off.

There are thousands of girls in primary schools across the country who wear a head covering to school.

But why is this happening? They are at primary school? Don’t you support kids being allowed to be kids rather than having a misogynistic ideology imposed on them to say that it is their responsibility to cover their hair/hide themselves in case men can’t control themselves? Why don’t the boys have their freedom curtailed in a similar way?

I'm going to be really real with you. I've had a long old day. Monday's are the only day of the week I get to leave school promptly, and I've got about a hundred things that sound a lot more fun than debating Sara Sharif's hijab with you - an internet stranger. I can only go on the experiences I've had in an almost 20 year teaching career.
I could pick apart and come back at every single comment, but to be really honest, I genuinely can't be arsed.
Nothing against you personally, I can see you're coming from a good place, but I am not the one to argue this today.

Have a lovely evening. Let's both go touch grass.

It's their culture, which is very different from white Western culture. It's important to accept other cultures and not impose our ways on them. You're viewing the Muslim culture and religion with Western eyes, but you should try to understand it for itself, and not overlay your own culture on it. You think that the hijab is purely about misogyny, but for many, it's deeply spiritual and an outward sign of their devotion to God.

We live in the West though and they are children - children should not have adult concepts about being ‘deeply spiritual’ and devoted to god imposed on them.

One girl has already died because too many people keep saying exactly what you’ve just said. Is that ok?

So many well meaning but ill informed people are very quick to abandon basic safeguarding principles in schools, be it to pander to the trans lobby or for ‘cultural reasons’ brought in from other parts of the world. None of this puts the welfare of the child first.

Hair coverings, treating girls as ‘lesser’ and singling them out for responsibility for men’s behaviour is not ‘Western’ culture and apart from the safeguarding aspect, allowing this to be imposed on children where in other parts of the world women are killed for not wearing a hijab should not be accepted.

I've lived and worked in different countries.

Not once did I expect anyone else there to bend to my culture. I was the outsider, it was on me to understand and follow theirs.

Accepting other cultures is not the same as adapting the host countries values to accomodate them.

The Muslim girl's parents said it would have been okay if their daughter showed my son her hair.

I know they weren't super strict but even that surprised me.