The power behind the veil

I look on efforts to ban the face veil with dismay. For me, it's an empowering tool

As a young British Muslim who wears the head covering and who on occasions chooses to wear the face veil (niqab), I have watched with increasing concern as UKIP calls for a total ban in the UK and the French government proposes a ban on state premises and on public transport.

My problem is not so much with the idea that the face veil is deemed impractical or threatens security in certain places, rather that, as argued by UKIP and President Sarkozy, it is an affront to women.

Nigel Farage, UKIP's ex-leader, stated that the veil is "something that is used to oppress women", while Sarkozy, whose committee on full veiling is due to report next week, has purported that this kind of covering by women breached the French Republic's fundamental principles of "sexual equality and secularism."

To address the question of sexual equality: from my point of view as a Muslim woman, it is the veil which affords that equality. The head veil with or without the face veil (which incidentally is not a religious requirement) is in fact a liberating and an empowering force rather than an oppressive one. In my experience, Muslim women who decide to wear a veil feel that, when they have contact with men, they are in full command of their bodies. With their outer beauty hidden from view what is exposed instead is their mind and inner qualities and so in any interaction with men they are valued not just for how they look. This attire also sends out a message that a woman is chaste and modest and and that she does not want her sexuality to enter into the interaction in the slightest degree.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect to this is that many of the niqab-wearing women in France are converts to Islam. If Islam really was all about subjugating women, what would be the attraction for them in this religion at all?

If the likes of UKIP are genuinely concerned about women's rights and equality then perhaps they should begin by asking the veiled Muslim women her opinion for a change instead of doing exactly what they supposedly stand against: forcing her to dress in a certain way or rather in this case, forcing her to undress.