Recently the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government made a bizarre decision when it announced that school girls in the KPK province will have to cover themselves up with burqa. The decision was made mandatory for all female students studying in all government-run schools and colleges in the province. But the recent orders from the government didn’t go well with the people and the government received severe backlash for their decision. And as a result of it the KPK government decided to reverse the decision with the Chief Minister taking back the order which meant that the burqa will not be a mandatory dress code for the female students in the province. The announcement to reverse the decision was also made from the official Twitter account of Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf (PTI), the ruling party in the province.

It was announced that the KP government doesn’t believe in any compulsion and people are free to decide what they want to wear, including the school girls when they are going to school and colleges. The decision was reversed with immediate effect as sanity prevailed in the minds of the government officials. Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari also appreciated the reversal of the decision and said that there is no way that one should regulate what a woman wears and what she doesn’t wear. She also said that there is no point of penalizing the girls just because there are some acts conducted in the society that is conducted by someone else.

The first order to wear burqa or abaya was issued in the Haripur district last week where principals of schools and colleges were asked to make it mandatory that girls should wear abaya or burqa to keep themselves covered. The main reason for taking the decision was due to the cultural norms in the KPK province and hence girls were asked to keep themselves covered. The decision was taken so that the girls are in abaya or burqa will be allowed to come to school and colleges by their parents and it will help the government to educate more school girls as parents are reluctant to send their girls in uniform.

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