In France on 26 January 2010 a cross-party parliamentary inquiry, set up six months ago to investigate the full veil, handed down its recommendations. It recommended first that a parliamentary resolution be adopted stating that wearing the full veil is contrary to Republican values. It went on to condemn discrimination and violence against women.
Despite the inquiry's position that as yet there is insufficient general consensus in support of a ban of the full veil in public spaces, the parliamentary leader of the ruling party, Jean-François Copé, has submitted a draft law stating that 'nobody, in places open to the public or the streets, may wear an outfit or an accessory whose effect is to hide the face'.
The draft law, which would apply to both the burqa and the niqab which fully obscure a woman's whole body and face and leave only a small slit or mesh for the eyes, has created ripples of both outrage and support across the world. Those who support it cry that countries must protect themselves against insidious non-democratic practices. Those who condemn it argue that to target Islam for its religious dress culture is a racist violation of cultural rights.
In the debate, the concerns that supposedly started the whole shebang — women's rights, their protection and promotion, and the complex implications of Islamic dress practices — have been obscured. Instead, women, and women's bodies, are yet again being used as the battleground for a culture war.
The sad irony is that a ban on women wearing the full veil in public places will not liberate women, but further constrain and even endanger them, regardless of their motives for wearing it.
If a woman has freely chosen to wear the full veil, then a law overriding that choice in public places is a clear curtailment of her civil and political rights. Those in the West who argue that women, even through the exercise of their own choice, should not be entitled to put themselves in a position which potentially demeans them, would do better to fight against violent pornography and unregulated prostitution.
If a woman has been forced to wear the burqa or the niqab, then it is barbaric to ostracise her socially, criminalise her, and restrict her access to public services. To isolate her further from the broader society and to discriminate against her while she is vulnerable, in the name of protecting her rights to be free from violence and discrimination, is nonsensical at best, dangerous at worst.
If the focus on the full veil is removed, the underlying sentiments of the French parliamentary inquiry — that women are equal citizens, that cultural practices which discriminate against them are wrong, and that violence against women should be condemned — are sound.
But only about 1900 women in France wear the full veil. In contrast, the number of prostitutes is estimated to range from 20,000–40,000. Many are trafficked, abused, and on the streets.
Domestic violence is also a huge problem. The French Ministry of Health reports that of the 652 women homicide victims in Paris and its immediate suburbs between 1990 and 1999, half were killed by their husbands or partners. France's sixth periodic report to the Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women finds that in metropolitan France on average one woman dies every four days as a result of violence from an intimate partner. It's been estimated that one in every ten French women is a victim of domestic violence.
Problems of domestic violence and prostitution aren't confined to France alone — Australia also has high rates of domestic violence — but they do offer some perspective on the debate over how best to protect women's rights. If attempting to combat discrimination and violence against women really is at the bottom of the debate over the burqa, then why not focus on domestic violence with the same hysteria?
This is not to say that there is no place for a discussion over what the burqa or the niqab mean, and what place they have, and should have, in modernity. From its practical problems to its symbolic implications, the issue of the full veil is loaded and sticky.
Too often, however, the role of women and the way they dress in society is constructed as a debate between right and wrong. It leaves no room for the multiple experiences of the world in which real women live, and the complex factors which influence the way in which women dress.
Tellingly, the French parliamentary inquiry was sparked by President Nicolas' Sarkozy's speech in June 2009 in which he stridently declared that the full veil was not welcome in France. Sarkozy wanted a debate, a political podium to yell from, and that's what he got.
But real understanding of what lies behind women's choices requires a conversation where women's concerns are listened to and acted upon. Polarising political hysteria whipped up by politicians, where women go unheard in the din, will not do.
Ruby J. Murray is a writer and researcher currently living in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she works in media and communications. She is co-founder of The Democracy Project. Ruby's blog