The Aksum hijab ban

Imagine, at 14, your education in Ethiopia’s Tigray region grinding to a halt as the deadliest war of the century erupts, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.

For over two years, you have been out of school, deprived of your fundamental human rights — the right to education. Imagine surviving those excruciating years, only to return to a classroom with a sense of bittersweet relief. Somehow, you’re “lucky,” given that your nation now has over 9 million children out of school, with more than a million in Tigray alone excluded due to the destruction of schools.

You are back in school, now a 9th grader when you should have been in 11th grade. You cling to hope, studying to make up for the lost years. But three months ago, in November 2024, that fragile hope was shattered, as your teachers and school administrators banned you from attending school—not because of academic failings, but for wearing your hijab.

What was once an unquestioned expression of your religious belief, your hijab, now makes you an outcast in the very institutions that should support your growth. This is the harsh reality for Estrhan and Sebrina, two of the 140 female students who have been barred from school since December in Axum, Tigray, for wearing a hijab. They now fear losing a third year of education, having missed their first-semester final exams.

What was once an unquestioned expression of your religious belief, your hijab, now makes you an outcast in the very institutions that should support your growth.

Aksum, often recognised for its religious significance, particularly as an early centre of Christianity, has a more complex interfaith history. While King Aṣ-ḥamah ibn-Abjar, or the Negus of Aksum (popularly known Najashi), played a crucial role in early Islamic history by offering refuge to the first followers of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century AD, Aksum has remained a predominantly Christian city.

Today, despite Muslims making up around 10% of the population (total population stands at around 73,000), no mosque exists within the city’s boundaries. This reality stems from the insistence of Christian residents that “Aksum is a sacred place, home to the Biblical Queen of Sheba and the Ark of the Covenant,” which has led to the Muslim community being forced to worship in makeshift spaces within rented houses or outside the city. One senior religious figure in Aksum, Godefa Merha, said “Aksum is our Mecca”, and like Mecca, buildings for other faith communities cannot be built.  

While the current hijab ban is unprecedented in its severity, Esther recalls previous instances, before the war, when teachers would require students to remove their hijabs, threatening dismissal for non-compliance. These situations, however, were typically resolved through meetings with parents.

“But now,” she told Geeska, “the situation has worsened. It’s not just the teachers anymore; the police are involved. If they see us anywhere near the school, they forcibly remove us. It's been three months since we've been in school.”

In October 2024, the Islamic Affairs Office in Axum sent a letter to the city’s Education Bureau, urging schools to respect Muslim students’ right to wear the hijab after four secondary schools prohibited it, barring 140 students, including Grade 12 exam candidates, from attending classes.

Indifferent to the letter, in November 2024, schools resumed enforcement after a brief pause, which sparked protests in December 2024 over violations of constitutional and educational rights. The following month, the Tigray Islamic Affairs Supreme Council issued a three-day ultimatum to reverse the policy, citing federal and regional laws, but negotiations stalled as police began forcibly removing hijab-wearing students near schools.  

In the same month, following a complaint from the Tigray Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, the Axum City District Court summoned five schools to address allegations of barring Muslim students from wearing hijabs. The court issued a preliminary ruling suspending the ban, citing the potential for “irreversible rights violations”.

Despite the court ruling overturning the ban, four schools in Aksum have reportedly refused to comply and continue to enforce it. What is more concerning is that the Tigray Regional State’s Aksum Zone Education Bureau Head, Mrs. Tsega Gebremeskel, has not taken steps to implement the court’s decision, raising questions about adherence to legal obligations.

Officials are ordinarily bound to uphold court rulings unless formally challenged through legal channels, making this defiance of a judicial order legally problematic. In other words, the schools are actively breaking the law.  

Instead, according to students and local residents, these schools have shifted the blame onto the students, alleging that their activism extends beyond religious attire to promote a “political agenda”.

“A police officer inside the school tried to choke my friend with her own hijab,” one of the students told Geeska. “We just want to wear our hijabs and continue our education. We've already lost so much,” another lamented.

These students now face the consequences of a failing justice system that has stripped them of their basic human rights, perhaps the final straw from a crumbling political clique threatening the region with another war.

Daniel Berhane, a Tigrayan political analyst, says that the ban on hijab in the schools in Axum was not issued by the regional education administration but rather by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former ruling party. He suggests that the decision came from Fetlework Gebregziabher, head of the TPLF office, who is aligned with Debretsion Gebremichael’s faction. He also claims, such policies are unprecedented in the city.  

While his critique raises legitimate concerns, there is past precedent which he overlooks. Although not as extreme, Muslim residents and students in the ancient city confided to Geeska that there have been previous incidents concerning the hijab in the region, which draw attention to deeper systemic issues within Tigray’s political landscape, where authorities may increasingly resort to divisive tactics to consolidate power amid ongoing instability.

Perhaps a more compelling concern that supports Mr Berhane’s claim is the defiance of the court order by local education officials, who continue to enforce the ban and prevent students from attending school. This brazen rejection of judicial authority raises critical questions about the influence of external power structures. How can a zonal education office head openly disregard a legal order, unless acting with an impunity granted by higher authorities? Such actions suggest a troubling erosion of institutional accountability and the rule of law.  

“This brazen rejection of judicial authority raises critical questions about the influence of external power structures. How can a zonal education office head openly disregard a legal mandate, unless acting with an impunity granted by higher authorities?”

As Ourji Biso, a lecturer, researcher, and wearer of both the hijab and niqab (face cover), who has extensively studied hijab bans in Ethiopia, aptly describes these prohibitions targeting the headscarf, gufta, jilbab, khimar, dupatta, niqab, or face veil, as a "sub-war" within the broader struggle for women's human rights. In a post on Finding Fura, an online Ethiopian feminist magazine, she recalls challenges that girls wearing the hijab have faced in Aksum: “To give little background story, the hijab ban and persecution due to it was common before the conflict where female students’ headscarves would be snatched, used as a black board cleaner or be burned in worst cases.”

Despite varying motivations, the hijab ban that threatens children’s right to education, religious freedom, and gender equality manifests in various historical and geographical contexts. In 2024, Tajikistan introduced a hijab ban. Kazakhstan, another Muslim majority country, also forbids girls from wearing the hijab in school. In Europe, France imposed a similar ban on hijabs in schools, which was passed by the country’s parliament as far back as 2004. The language used in the bill referred to “conspicuous” religious items, but it was understood as an attack on the religious freedoms of French Muslim women.  

These bans strip women of their ability to make decisions for themselves, preventing them from accessing education, finding work, and fully participating in society. Yet women simply want their autonomy, like Estrhan, who just wants to return to school.