The head of the National Council for Women (NCW) has visited two girls whose hair was cut by their teacher because they did not wear veils in class. The visit came days after the father of one of the girls withdrew the family’s complaint against the teacher.
Eman Abou Bakr made headlines last week when she cut the hair of two girls in her class after warning them to wear a veil. Abou Bakr wears a full veil which covers her face.
Mervat Al-Telway, head of the NCW, visited the two girls, Ola Mansour and Mona Al-Rawy, on Tuesday to raise their morale and to promise them that the incident will not happen again.
While the act was condemned by teachers’ groups and women’s groups, Abou Bakr also has her supporters. The Union of Luxor’s Teachers held a meeting with Abou Bakr on Tuesday night where it announced that it is adopting her case and supporting her through her “ordeal” which was “created by the press”, state-run Al-Ahram reported.
The union said while it believes that Abou Bakr made a mistake, it should be handled through legal methods and announced its rejection of the way officials dealt with the issue, moving Abou Bakr to administrative job and deducting one month’s salary.
Abou Bakr said that she may have made a mistake but that she didn’t expect people to take advantage of the fact that she wears a face veil to make a point. She added that she doesn’t belong to any political or religious groups.
She added that she feels humiliated because of the way the media handled the incident.
Mona’s father, Berbesh Al-Rawy, withdrew a complaint against the teacher and signed a reconciliation with her, earlier this week, according to state-run Al-Ahram. He added that even though she made a mistake, he doesn’t want any more humiliation for her, especially after other parties have intervened and made complaints against her.
In a separate incident, a teacher cut the hair of a four year old boy in Alexandria earlier this week because his long hair made him look like feminine, according to state-run Al-Akhbar. The teacher was also reported to be wearing a face veil.
