After graduating from medical school, Salomat had to settle for working as a masseuse at a Dushanbe beauty salon because hospitals in Tajikistan don’t allow the Islamic hijab, which she wears.
“I had to choose between my career and my faith, and I chose the latter,” says Salomat, who didn’t want to give her full name. “I did remove my hijab in college because I thought that was temporary. But a career is for life.”
Thousands of women in Tajikistan have faced similar choices in recent years as the staunchly secular government in Dushanbe has been increasingly cracking down on the Islamic head scarf at schools and workplaces.
Despite the effective ban on the hijab in public institutions, there is no legislation in Tajikistan that outlaws Islamic attire. But that is about to change.
Parliament in the predominantly Muslim nation of some 10 million has adopted draft amendments to the law on “traditions and celebrations” that will ban the wearing, importing, selling, and advertising of “clothes alien to Tajik culture,” a term widely used by officials to describe Islamic clothing.
Several Dushanbe residents told RFE/RL that they don’t support a ban on certain types of clothes because they believe people should be free to choose what clothes they want to wear.
“It’s important to have the freedom to choose our own clothes. There shouldn’t be a law ordering us what to wear,” said Munira Shahidi, an expert on art and culture.
Most Tajiks believe the new amendments would only legalize a “ban that has already been in place for years.”
Tajik Islam is its own thing. They are (relatively) open and women are frequently seen in public. They can walk around on their own and they dont cover their heads with hijabs or similar. They are also very vary of foreign influences such as Arabic Islam, Turkish Islam and above all Taliban influences. The hijab is a staple in all of these forms of Islam, so banning it is essentialy telling those groups to stop trying to take over Tajik Islam. This is a good thing. It is protecting women from a shift to much more oppressing religious practices.