New Zealand Women Wear Headscarves to Show Solidarity after the Mosque Shooting

Women from all across New Zealand join together to put on headscarves in order to show solidarity with the Muslim community, a week after 50 people were killed in the Mosque shooting in the city of Christchurch.

Thaya Ashman, a doctor in Auckland came up with this idea to encourage people to wear a headscarf after she heard a woman, who was too scared to go out as she felt that her headscarf would make her a target for terrorism.

Ashman said, “I wanted to say, We are with you, we want you to feel at home on your own streets, we love, support and respect you”.

This Friday, when the city of Christchurch geared up for the prayers at a park in front of the Al Noor mosque, where the gruesome shooting took place last week, women from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch posted pictures of themselves in headscarves, some with children in headscarves, too.

Bell Sibly, in Christchurch said, “Why am I wearing a headscarf today? Well, my primary reason was that if anybody else turns up waving a gun, I want to stand between him and anybody he might be pointing it at. And I don’t want him to be able to tell the difference, because there is no difference”.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also won widespread praise last week, when she put on a black headscarf while meeting the members of the Muslim community after the shootings.

Rachel McGregor, who is also involved in the Head Scarf for Harmony campaign, said she had felt anxious going out with her head covered, with people staring when she entered her office building. She said, “It’s given me for the first time an appreciation for what it must be like to be a minority and to wear clothing that perhaps the majority don't normally wear”.

Most of the Muslim women across the world cover their heads in public with the hijab as a sign of modesty, although some critics see it as a sign of female oppression. As both headscarves, hijab and the niqab, the full-face Islamic veil, have time and again stirred debate in countries around the world. While some are trying to restrict these items, the niqab, in particular, others have called for women to wear them.

In New Zealand, the campaign has won widespread support and appreciation from the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand and the New Zealand Muslim Association, who has opponents in New Zealand and beyond.