The Compass – Sweden News: Employees of the Swedish Gender Authority criticized the decision to stop publishing and using pictures of young girls veiled in the media and propaganda materials of the authority.
This comes after the authority updated its photo publishing policy on its various platforms.
The general manager of the authority considered that the use of such images risks stereotypes for Muslims.
And she saw that the goal of publishing pictures is not to contribute to normalizing or strengthening discrimination against girls or persecuting them.
Employees of the Swedish Gender Equality Authority have received instructions that prevent the use of pictures showing minors wearing the veil.
One of the employees in those correspondence said: “The girls who wear the veil are present in Sweden, in different contexts and for various reasons, out of coercion, habit, belief or identity.
A few weeks ago, a picture was previously shown in a media text on education on gender equality from the authority’s website. The picture shows a boy and a girl wearing the veil.
In this regard, Tam said: “As a government agency, we bear the responsibility of what we offer and how we are presenting the various phenomena in our communication. The veil symbolizes different matters among different people, such as belief or identity, but in essence it is also related to a woman’s vision of her gender and dependency.”
And she continued: “The girls are only the ones who wear the veil, while the boys are not obligated to do so. This decision does not coincide with the Swedish gender equality policy.”
andHowever, the authority will continue to use pictures of veiled adult women.
According to the Director General, this policy is applied to minors because adult women veiled people represent a more complex issue, and Tam said:
“It comes to human rights for girls, their right to physical safety, not to violate, and the ability to choose their appearance, etc.. As an adult woman, you can choose sexy clothes as long as you are not committing crimes. We cannot do much about that because we have freedom of expression in Sweden.”
She added: “When it comes to children, they cannot choose, because the parents are the ones who choose on their behalf. Then there will be a big difference.”
andLisa Tam confirmed that veiled girls will not be fully prevented from participating in media materials. They will be allowed to appear in the reports, for example, but not in the media texts.
She concluded her speech to the newspaper by saying: “We should not give a sexual character to young girls, and they should not hide themselves in this way. This is not in line with gender equality, in Sweden.”