Insider Perspectives and the Human Rights Debate on Face Veil Bans

The ‘burqa bans’ adopted in Belgium and France and contemplated elsewhere in Europe, have mobilized human rights activists and scholars, who are nearly unanimous in accusing governments and public authorities banning face veiling of violations of religious freedom and discrimination on grounds of religion as well as gender. Yet like the governments banning the face veil, the human rights activists did not have much information at their disposal concerning the experiences of women wearing it. In this paper, the human rights debate about the face veil is revisited, taking into account the insider perspectives of those women.