Burka Rage

[gagged_Louise]

Leo9, I don't have any trouble with hidjabs (veils going from the chest up and draping the head but leaving the face completely free; common in Iran and Pakistan), nor with Indian, African or Lapponian clothing. I loved it when I saw a marriage photo in the paper here with a woman who had married an Indian chief from the south-western USA; he was wearing his full chief's uniform with feather headgear and all in the pic and his wife was beaming.

But I think one has to take the fear of hidden bombs and the concerns over shrunk options of taking part in society seriously. Allowing the burqa without any questions is an easy route to allow for a murky kind of control by family or clan heads over their women and kids, and if the subject doesn't know the language of the country or doesn't move around much on her own, then they don't have much of a chance to speak up or make contact if they would be harassed by their next of kin. If they are required to wear a burqa as soon as they leave the house, they won't really get far with learning the new language anyway, so it becomes a covert prison. And that kind of control really does happen - "honouir killings" and forced marriages are much easier to engineer and to hide if the woman has never been in touch with authorities and is under the thumb of her male relatives or her parents.