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The All-Women's Action Society (Awam) is disturbed by recent reports of the removal of a school team from a netball tournament in Penang, allegedly due to some of the players not wearing a tudung during matches.

Subsequent editorials and letters from the public revealed that there is a strong pressure to wear the tudung placed upon students by school administrators, despite a 1992 circular by the Education Ministry stating that there is no compulsion for students to do so.

Awam questions what seems to be a necessity felt by school administrators to force girls to don the tudung. Surely the choice should be made by the individual concerned, not by those who in the first place have already exceeded their authority by making the tudung compulsory.

By forcing someone to wear the tudung, they are making a mockery of those who do choose to wear it as an indication of their faith and devotion. We ask whether the school administrators in question consider themselves satisfied simply by the wearing of the tudung regardless of the person's beliefs or understanding of her own spirituality. This superficiality is insulting both to those who are forced to wear the tudung, and those who choose to wear it out of faith.

There is an increasing trend in Malaysia on focusing on the appearance rather than the substance of religion and religious observance. There are real issues of injustice and discrimination going on affecting women Muslim and non-Muslim alike but not many people seem to be as troubled by this as the principal of SMK Abdullah Munshi was over the issue of netball players removing their tudung.

We can already see an issue of discrimination in these incidents, whereby women are subjected to more controls and regulation in terms of their dressing and behaviour than men. We do not wake up to news reports of boys being forced to wear songkok and long pants when they play games. If the issue is about proper dressing, why is there no equivalent attention being paid to the boys' aurat?

When the world celebrated International Women's Day on March 8, the media carried reports highlighting the progress made by Malaysian women. Sadly, discriminatory and authoritarian practices are still being inflicted against women about which there is still far too much silence. Awam hopes we will see a change in this.

The writer is president of the All Women's Action Society (Awam).

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