Moroccan Player Makes History as First to Wear Hijab at Women’s World Cup

"There are images so striking, so provocative and so profound that they change the world. This weekend, we witnessed one of those images at the wonderful Women’s World Cup taking place in Australia: The Moroccan Nouhaila Benzina took the field against South Korea, thus becoming the first player to wear a hijab at a World Cup," comments Stefano Hatfield, a British journalist and editor, in an op-ed published on the inews.co.uk site, noting that the white veil of the Moroccan defender was complemented by white leggings, a white base layer and an immaculate white hijab, "which has immediately become an iconic representation of women’s empowerment." According to him, the 25-year-old player has broken down barriers on the world stage. Especially in the West where the issue of the veil crystallizes political divisions.

This image of the Moroccan player has changed the columnist’s perception of wearing the veil. "Emancipation. I have chosen this word deliberately and carefully. Ten years ago, I could never have imagined writing it. Like many Westerners, I once considered the Islamic veil an instrument of repression, a sign of the lack of freedom emblematic of women in the Islamic world." He recalls the years when he was a teacher in schools where he had among his students young girls wearing the Islamic veil. "But ten years ago, having grown up in south London and having pursued a career in the media in London and New York, I hardly knew any Muslims personally. Then I became a teacher in a public school."

Stefano Hatfield recounts that in his first school, where the students were mostly Somali, the majority of Muslim girls wore the hijab and that in his second school, with students closer to the Middle East, the wearing of the hijab was less ubiquitous and, to his great surprise, "it was an individual choice." "These students educated me, partly through PSHE (public, social, health and economics) classes, but above all through informal conversations in the schoolyard, in class and on school outings, which are one of the true privileges of teaching in a multicultural school," admits this British Catholic.