Responding to multiple reports on Sunday that the de facto government was cracking down on dress in Gaza's schools, Hamas on Monday denied making any recent policy changes on uniforms or expulsions.
A spokesman for the Hamas-run Education Ministry in Gaza, Khaled Radi, reiterated that his office had not received instructions from the de facto government imposing conservative dress codes on schoolgirls.
Radi said the reports on Sunday likely originated from an incident in which a school headmistress punished a handful of students for not dressing conservatively enough. He said the headmistresses of several schools had been contacted to confirm that their decisions did not come from the ministry.
The conflicting reports led Ma'an to visit a number of schools in Gaza City to find out what was really going on.
One girl at Bashir Ar-Rayyis school said on the first day of this semester she was punished along with a friend because the two were wearing jeans. They were told to return to class the next day wearing jilbab (traditional Islamic sleeved dress) or they would be expelled. She said school administrators gave similar instructions to any girls caught wearing jeans.
Elsewhere notices were posted on school walls in western Gaza City, reading, "Announcement for all girls regarding dress codes for the new school year. The uniform should be as follows: Navy blue jilbab with white headscarf and black or white shoes."
"We request that all girls follow these instructions," the signs read.
The owners of several Gaza City boutiques told Ma'an that had stopped selling jeans to schoolgirls after they heard rumors about the government's new dress code.
At Ahmad Shawqi School in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, several students said they were sent back home to change out of jeans and put on new uniforms. The girls were threatened with expulsion if they failed to cooperate, they said.
"I used to study at a private school, and when I went to a government school for registration, the headmaster asked to see me and check up on my clothing and make sure it met all their standards," one student explained. "He told me if I didn't wear jilbab, I'd be expelled."
Then at Al-Jalil school a handful of students, wearing jeans and showing their hair, said they rebelled against the decision from day one, insisting authorities had no right to determine what they could wear, and that no one was punished.
Meanwhile, Ma'an learned that Christian girls studying at government schools had been included in the apparently new wave of conservative dress requirements. Some said they were also forced to cover their hair, which if true would be an unprecedented requirement for Gaza's Christian minority.
On the other hand, Muslim girls who study at the Christian Holy Family Schools in Gaza were banned from wearing the headscarf, which is donned by many Muslim women in the ultraconservative Strip. Each day those who choose to wear the scarf remove it before going to class and put it back on before leaving.
But the latest allegations against the Islamic movement on Monday echoed a decision by the Hamas-run judiciary in Gaza to force so-called modest dress on female lawyers in July, a move that infuriated Palestinian human rights organizations and affected lawyers. The decree would require that female lawyers wear traditional robes and veils covering their hair while in Gaza's courtrooms.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called that decision "illegal and unjustified" at the time, but had no immediate reaction to Monday's allegations on forced dress for the coastal strip's schoolgirls.
Front Page Features