A Childhood Lost Under the Hijab
Imagine a seven- or eight-year-old girl. At that age, the world should be a place of play, discovery, and freedom. Yet for thousands of girls, this stage of life is prematurely covered by a piece of fabric.
The hijab worn by children is a serious issue involving rights, freedoms, and equality that Western societies often prefer to ignore, either out of convenience or out of fear of opening an uncomfortable debate.
To understand the scale of the phenomenon, we need only look at Egypt. There, 90% of adult women wear the veil—nine out of every ten. In a country that presents itself abroad as “open,” the reality is that social pressure is suffocating.
Families from hijab-wearing traditions begin putting the veil on their daughters between the ages of seven and nine. In rural areas, particularly in the south, the picture becomes even more troubling: girls wearing the niqab, the full-face veil that covers their faces completely, leaving only a narrow opening for their eyes.
In these contexts, the custom has become a kind of moral auction: the more layers of fabric a woman wears, the more “pure” and “good” she is considered to be.
And What Happens in Europe?
With immigration from countries where wearing the hijab is deeply rooted, this issue has also become part of the European debate. What is part of everyday life in Islamic countries becomes a direct cultural clash when it is brought to Spain and the rest of Europe. And this is where we must ask ourselves: Is this acceptable in Europe?
Europe has built its societies on principles such as equality between men and women, freedom of conscience, and the protection of minors. Some images become so normalised that we stop asking questions.
That is why it is legitimate to ask:
Should a girl wear a religious symbol whose moral and social significance she is not yet capable of understanding?
Where does the parents’ freedom of religion end, and where do the rights of the child begin?
These are uncomfortable questions, but necessary ones.
Much More Than a Piece of Fabric: What Does the Hijab Represent?
Those who defend the veil from a multicultural perspective often reduce it to a simple aesthetic or identity choice. But the hijab is not just a piece of fabric; it is a vehicle for a very specific ideology.
Its original and openly stated purpose is to conceal the female body so as not to arouse male sexual attraction, based on the assumption that men are incapable of controlling themselves and that the responsibility for modesty rests exclusively with women.
Does it make sense to raise a girl according to these values in a society that upholds equality? Clearly not.
The Real Problem
A girl does not need protection from men’s gazes. She needs to play, discover the world, and grow up without feeling that her body is a problem or that she must conceal it to be considered a “good girl.”
Childhood should be a space of freedom, not one of religious obligations imposed by adults.
Introducing these ideas into a child’s mind contaminates her childhood. It conditions her behaviour, restricts her play, undermines her social and emotional development, and separates her from her peers. Through the language of guilt and early hypersexualisation, it teaches her that her body is a danger that must be hidden.
Does the hijab negatively affect girls’ development? The answer is an unequivocal yes. It is not cultural enrichment; it is a setback for the most basic rights of children.
Breaking the Cycle
The first step towards resolving a conflict is acknowledging that it exists. Europe cannot continue looking the other way under the umbrella of cultural tolerance when children’s rights are at stake.
The solution requires an inviolable red line: breaking the cycle of transmitting these values during childhood. While an adult woman’s decision to wear the veil falls within the sphere of personal freedom and her right to make her own choices, the situation is entirely different when it comes to girls.
The state has an obligation to protect minors from any form of ideological imposition that limits their development and equal opportunities.
Banning the hijab in schools and childcare settings is not an attack on diversity; it is a firm defence of childhood.
It means ensuring that all girls, regardless of their parents’ origins, have the right to experience freedom, grow up healthy and free from dogmas that diminish their status, and choose their own path when they are mature enough to do so.
Opening the Debate
Recognising that a problem exists does not mean attacking Muslim people.
It means asking whether certain practices are compatible with a society that aspires to protect freedom and equality from childhood onwards.
In my opinion, the wearing of the hijab by minors should be part of the public debate.
Because children’s rights must take precedence over any cultural or religious tradition.
Every girl should have the right to grow up without feeling compelled to embody an ideal of modesty, purity, or virtue imposed by adults.
Childhood happens only once, and it deserves to be lived with the wind in one’s hair, not with freedom covered up.