- Hair Shaving Incident at Indonesian School
- Controversy Over Mandatory Hijab Wearing
- Calls for Accountability and Psychological Support
A school on the main island of Indonesia has partially shaved the heads of more than a dozen female students after they were accused of improperly donning their Islamic hijab headscarves.
Activists assert that Muslim and non-Muslim girls have been compelled to wear the hijab for years in conservative regions of the 270 million-person nation, which moved in 2021 to prohibit such mandatory dress codes in schools.
Last Wednesday, an unidentified teacher at the state-run junior high school SMPN 1 in the East Java town of Lamongan partially shaved the heads of 14 Muslim females, according to the school’s headmaster, who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.
Harto stated that the school had issued an apology and suspended the teacher. According to him, the schoolgirls did not wear interior caps beneath their headscarves, exposing their fringes.
“There is no requirement for female students to wear the hijab. But they were advised to do so for a neat appearance,” Harto told the AFP.
We apologized to the parents, and through mediation, we agreed. He stated that the school had vowed to provide students with psychological support.
Rights groups demanded that the teacher be fired.
“The Lamongan case is likely the most intimidating in Indonesia’s history,” said Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch.
“Teachers who have cut the hair of their students have never been disciplined.
The Lamongan education office should remove this teacher and assign traumatised victims psychologists.
According to a report from 2021, some schoolgirls had their hijabs cut off if they weren’t worn properly. While others received lower grades or were expelled for not wearing hijabs.
A Christian student in West Sumatra was pressured to wear a hijab in 2021, a case that officials characterized as the “tip of the iceberg”.
