World Hijab Day

World Hijab Day is an annual event founded by Nazma Khan in 2013. The event takes place on February 1st each year in 140 countries worldwide. Its stated purpose is to encourage women of all religions and backgrounds to wear and experience the hijab. Event organizers describe it as an opportunity for non-Muslim women to experience the hijab.

Criticism of the event 

In February 2013, Maryam Namazie criticised World Hijab Day in a piece that compared World Hijab Day with World Female Genital Mutilation Day or World Child Marriage Day. She was quoted in a BBC report on the Day as saying:

"Millions of women and girls have been harassed, fined, intimidated and arrested for 'improper' veiling over the past several decades," she wrote in a blog post about the Iranian women's football team's hijabs.

"Anyone who has ever taken an Iran Air flight will verify how quickly veils are removed the minute the airplane leaves Iranian airspace.

"And anyone who knows anything about Iran knows the long and hard struggle that has taken place against compulsory veiling and sex apartheid."

In 2014, Maryam Namazie called for solidarity with "women who refuse and resist veiling."

In December 2015, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa titled "As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear the hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity". They say that the event spreads the "misleading interpretation" that the head covering is always worn voluntarily, and that "hijab" purely means headscarf.

In his own opinion piece published in 2017, Maajid Nawaz references the earlier Nomani & Arafa article and describes the event as "worse than passé", suggesting that the name be changed to "Hijab is a Choice Day".

In 2018, Canadian human-rights campaigner Yasmine Mohammed started a #NoHijabDay campaign in response, to celebrate the  women who have defied social censure and the state to remove the hijab. She says:

No Hijab Day is a day to support brave women across the globe who want to be free from the hijab. Women who want to decide for themselves what to wear or what not to wear on their heads. Women who fight against either misogynist governments that will imprison them for removing their hijab or against abusive families and communities that will ostracize, abuse and even kill them.

Notes

References
 Grima, Nathalie. "An Affair of the Heart": Hijab Narratives of Arab Muslim Women in Malta." Implicit Religion 16, no. 4 (December 2013): 461-481. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost. 
 Jones, Nicky. "Beneath the Veil: Muslim Girld and Islamic Headscarves in Secular France." Macquarie Law Journal 9, (May 2009): 47-69. Academic Search Complete,EBSCOhost.
 Prusher, Ilene. "World Hijab Day: Muslims debate where the headscarf belongs." Christian Science Monitor, September 4, 2012. N.PAG, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost
 Vyas, Sapna. "Identity Experiences of Young Muslim American Women in the Post 9/11 Era " Encounter 21, no. 2 (Summer2008 2008): 15-19. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
 ZAHEDI, ASHRAF. "Muslim American Women in the Post-11 September Era." International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 2 (June 2011): 183-203. Academic Search Complete,  EBSCOhost.
 "Participating Countries - World Hijab Day." World Hijab Day. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2016.
 "Assemblyman David Weprin issues statement in support of ‘World Hijab Day’", 01 Feb. 2016. http://worldhijabday.com/assemblyman-david-weprin-issues-statement-in-support-of-world-hijab-day/

Category:Purdah
Category:Religious headgear
Category:Scarves
Category:Veils
Category:February observances
Category:International observances
Category:Hijab