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Turkey

Turkey To Loosen Longstanding Ban On Headscarves In Schools

Trying to reconcile modernity and Muslim tradition in Turkey
Trying to reconcile modernity and Muslim tradition in Turkey
Yazı Boyutu

New rules on school uniforms in Turkey will now allow young girls to wear headscarves while attending religious vocational schools.

The move comes as a part of a new regulation that will no longer force children in state schools to wear secular school uniforms. Children will be able to wear their own choice of clothes, with mini skirts, tight-fitted clothing and sleeveless shirts strictly prohibited.

Female students will also be prohibited from wearing makeup or bleaching their hair. Male students will not be allowed to grow beards or mustaches or don clothes with political slogans and drawings.

“In our country, dress codes have always come under criticism. It’s time to let people wear what they want, whatever their means permit them to wear,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, speaking at a press conference in Spain on Tuesday.

The new uniform regulations will be put into place for the academic year of 2013-2014. Although the headscarf will still be banned in public and private schools during classes, female vocational school students can wear it.

The loosening of the ban of headscarves and other religious attire in Turkish schools is part of a wider debate over how to reconcile modernity and Muslim tradition in Turkey.

Turkey was founded as a secular republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who banned religious headwear after World War I.

In 2007, a bid by Erdogan's ruling AK party to lift the headscarf ban sparked a major crisis that almost led to the party being closed by the constitutional Court for conducting anti-secular activities.

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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