The Dutch chain store Hema has admitted that it didn’t treat its shop assistant in a fair way. Hema has proposed 20-year-old Joyce to return and to take a new job with Hema, but she refuses as it involves a position where she would no longer have contact with customers.

The Hema store in Genk (Limburg province) decided earlier this week not to extend the temporary contract of a shop assistant because she wears a headscarf. It was reported that she was violating the company’s dress code. Hema had made the decision after complaints made by customers. The young woman refused to work without her head scarf and her contract was terminated. The case quickly made the headlines in the Belgian press.

However, Hema has now admitted that it did not treat the young woman correctly. “By allowing a headscarf first and forbidding it later, Hema did not act correctly towards this temporary employee”, a statement said. It came after a meeting with Belgium’s anti-racism centre.

Hema offered the woman a new position, offering her the possibility of keeping her headscarf on. However, it would involve a job where she has no contact with customers, which is why she turned down the offer.

In Genk, a demonstration was held this afternoon to support the young woman. According to Mayor Wim Dries (Christian democrat), some 300 people took part in the march. An estimated 80 percent of them were women. The initiative for the demonstration was taken by the Islamic community.

It was agreed earlier that the demonstration would not pass the Hema store. No incidents were reported.

Flanders News, 12 March 2011

A Hema store in the Belgian-Limburg town of Genk fired one of its temporary workers for wearing a headscarf, the Flemish paper theStandaard reports on Tuesday.

The woman had asked if she could wear a headscarf and was told she could, but following negative reactions from customers, was asked to remove it. When she refused, she was fired. There were no complaints about her work, the paper says.

The woman, described as not being of foreign origin, was sent to the Hema by temp agency Randstad. It told the paper it was the client’s decision whether or not to keep one of their workers.

Dutch News, 8 March 2011

A Belgian high school on Tuesday sacked a Muslim maths teacher after she insisted she would continue to wear the burqa while taking classes.

At the start of the academic year authorities at the school in Charleroi, south of Brussels, told the Turkish-born teacher to remove her full-face Islamic veil, which she had been wearing during class for two and a half years. The teacher refused and took her case to court.

In the first instance the Charleroi tribunal backed the school board, citing the religious “neutrality” of the schools serving Belgium’s francophone community. However, in March the appeals court ruled that the school in question came under the jurisdiction of Charleroi, which had not issued rules on the banning of religious insignia. The Muslim teacher therefore returned to school, but the municipality soon afterwards introduced its own ban on the wearing of “all religious or philosophical symbols”.

On Tuesday officials at the school, after auditioning the teacher in presence of the mayor, decided to sack her for her continued refusal to leave her burqa at home, according to a statement issued by the town hall.

AFP, 8 June 2010

Update:  See Islam in Europe which points out that “Nuran Topal, the teacher in question, wears a headscarf, not a face-veil”.