Based on a U.N. report, France was found to have discriminated against a Muslim lady who was denied access to vocational training at a public school while wearing a hijab, an Islamic head scarf.
Now 45 years old, Naima Mezhoud, was scheduled to complete a training as a management assistant at a public high school where teenagers are not permitted to wear the hijab, in 2010. According to the report, the head teacher of the school on the northern fringes of Paris refused to let her in when she arrived.
The U.N Human Rights Committee stated "The committee concludes that the refusal to allow (Mezhoud) to participate in the training while wearing her headscarf constitutes a gender and religious-based act of discrimination,"
Mezhoud contacted the U.N. Human Rights Committee after she was unsuccessful in several judicial battles in France.
According to the committee, France violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' paragraphs 18 and 26 on religious freedom.
Sefen Guez Guez, Mezhoud's attorney, said that the verdict demonstrated that international human-rights organizations disapproved of France's attitudes toward Islam.
He continued, "French institutions will have to comply with the U.N. decision."
The U.N. committee's decision theoretically gives France six months to provide Mezhoud with a financial settlement and the option to enroll in the vocational training program if she so chooses. The government must also take action to prevent further transgressions of international law.
