Right to Education of Muslim Niqabi Women in Ethiopia: Analysis of the 2008 MOE Directive on Manners of Worship
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Date
2023-07
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AAU
Abstract
The 2008 MOE directive on manners of worship in educational institutions introduced a clear ban on Niqab. The Niqab one of the religious manifestations of Muslim women worn by many in Ethiopia including higher education institution was banned by the enactment of the directive and anyone wearing it was prohibited from getting all kinds of service including living on campuses of the institutions after wards. This research has questioned the constitutionality of the ban in light of the internationally guaranteed human rights of women. An analytical method is used to examine the appropriateness of the directive with human rights guaranteed constitutionally and under international human rights instruments. The FDRE Constitution, the 2008 MOE Directive, education-related laws and policies along with relevant international human rights instruments and interviews with purposively selected former students from Higher Educational institutions, have been used as primary sources. Court cases, commentaries, and publications concerning women‟s equal right to education have also been used as secondary sources. All collected data were analyzed, interpreted, and judged qualitatively based on the essential tools of legal reasoning. The directive which was controversial and questioned from its draft stage for being an obstacle to religious freedom and the right to education was proved to be the barrier to the right to education of Niqabi female students who were forced to choose between exercising freedom of religion and pursuing their right to education. This problem of the directive was a good example showing the intersectionality of women‟s human rights violation, how the prohibition of one right of women can be an obstacle to the exercise of other human rights showing human rights are interdependent and indivisible. Despite the security and secularism reasons put to necessitate the enactment of the directive the measure of all in all banning Niqab and expelling female Niqabi students otherwise was discriminatory, not necessary, and not proportional measure. Thus, the state, alongside its duty to respect and fulfill has to make the enjoyment of the right possible, by adopting laws and regulations that are adaptable to the social change taking place in Ethiopia.