Turkiye Insists Headscarf Amendment Law Will Secure Women’s Right to Choose
Turkiye announced on Saturday that the proposal to amend the constitution regarding headscarves and defining conjugal unions, currently before its parliament, will ensure women's freedom of choice in clothing and further fortify the family against the attacks of perverse trends.
At the "Marching to Great Türkiye with Women: Women in Science, Culture, Art, Sports, and Politics Convention" in Antalya, Turkey's southern province, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the crowd that "this historic amendment will reveal who is on the side of democracy and freedom and who is on the side of fascism and restrictions".
The proposal to amend the constitution was submitted a month ago on December 9 by a group of female deputies from the president's Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
This was done in response to a proposal made in October by the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) to institutionalize the right to wear headscarves with legislation to win over conservative voters in advance of the 2023 elections.
In the 600-member parliament, the ruling AK Party and its allies hold 334 seats, and 366 members of Parliament have already signed the AK Party's proposal. Erdogan said he hoped the bill would receive more than 400 affirmative votes in parliament.
“We will determinedly continue our struggle until we have built our vision of a Türkiye that symbolizes the century-long dreams of our people,” Erdoğan said.
He further added that his administration would “fight this struggle once again with women as we have in the past 20 years.”
He then went on to praise women’s “contribution to the records we have broken and the level Türkiye has reached today” and said they would become “the architects of the Century of Türkiye.”
Erdoğan and his AK Party have long stressed that the headscarf issue is “the most important element” for the party’s presence, and their general approach to it could “never be political.”
The headscarf has historically been a contentious issue in Turkey, with the country's once-dominant secular establishment viewing it as a threat to established norms of social behaviour. However, the AK Party's reforms during its 20 years in power ensured that the issue no longer generated debate.
After the CHP brought up the issue again in late 2022, seeking an amendment to allow women to freely wear headscarves in the public sector where they work, the AK Party went straight to Parliament to pass its constitutional amendment to end the case for good. Increasing the stakes, Erdogan added that measures to protect the family would also be included in the amendment.
While wearing a headscarf is commonplace in Turkey, women who choose to do so have long faced discrimination due to laws that forbid them from doing so in public settings like schools and workplaces. The CHP had stoked public opposition to the hijab and advocated for legislation to outlaw it.
Throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, the ban on the headscarf was a major topic of public and political debate in Türkiye. It was widely implemented in the 1980s but tightened after 1997, when the military forced the conservative government to resign in what has since been dubbed the February 28 "postmodern coup." In the past, Erdoan has referred to this time as the "days of oppression against women," during which he was compelled to pull his children out of school.
In 2008, Erdogan successfully pushed through Parliament his proposal to remove the ban on female students wearing the headscarf at university, a move opposed by the CHP lawmakers, including CHP Chairperson Kemal Klçdarolu, who unsuccessfully challenged the ban in the Constitutional Court.
Reforms implemented in 2013 in Turkey, including the removal of the ban on women wearing headscarves in state institutions, were presented as measures to strengthen democracy.