Dutch Muslim women wear headscarf out of conviction

Six out of ten Dutch Muslim women aged 15 to 35 years, some 80,000 young women, are now wearing a headscarf not by suppression but rather as part of their identity according to a survey of 1,500 women by the research bureau Motivaction in the Netherlands and published Tuesday. Some 93% of the women surveyed said wearing a headscarf made them feel more of a Muslim, Turk or Moroccan. Up to 66% said they covered their hair because it was required by Islam. Some 70% of those surveyed said they felt accepted at their jobs despite their headscarf but 62% thought some firms would rather not employ women who wear them. Of the women who had stopped covering their heads, 41% did it to increase their chance of a job and 20% hoped they would suffer less discrimination. The survey was conducted to mark the publication of a magazine for headscarf-wearers, called Hoofdboek in Dutch. An estimated one million Muslims live in Netherlands which has a population of around 17 million.