Many Names;but just one Meaning: It's Self Respect

I had actually posted my one year old daughter's picture in which she was wearing a hijab (headscarf) and i got amazed with responses or rather questions from my friends. Of course it was a mix of positive and negative views on making my daughter wear that. Most repeated question was when you have never posted your picture wearing a burqa, why did you dress up your daughter like that.....True, I have never posted my picture in burqa, but, those who know me very well and see me regularly, know that, I wear burqa to my office every day and where ever i go, It's just that i have never posted, or in that case, i don't remember when was the last time I stood for a photograph. And, it seems like my daughter is the only person, who gets to get photographed by my husband every day almost, at least with a mobile phone. So, i will definitely post my picture too in burqa, but, i dont know when....

So, coming back to my friends' questions and responses, everyone was asking me the same: why do you want to do this to Sarah?she is only a child and why cant she wear it after marriage? So, to all of you, for the record, I don't intend to make her wear it now...but, once she is 6/7 year old, she will wear it and I am definitely going to encourage her wearing it.

There are so many reasons for me to take such a decision at a time of when child abuses are in the rise in the country and where sexual preferences of people are becoming more public and open for discussion. Don't think me as very conservative or religious freak, but, just sit and think what is happening in the country.

Wearing burqa gives me self confidence more than i have ever felt when i was not wearing burqa before.And, more importantly, it gives me self respect and an identity that I am girl and no one will ever dare to tease or criticize me or my anatomy. And, I get so much of a sense of freedom that i have completely stopped worrying how my dress looks, and how do i look like in it and is there something exposed and what do i have to cover up in it and am i walking properly in this outfit etc etc etc..there are millions of questions and I am sure every girl will understand what am I talking about. And, everything just vanished like magic with just one dress:Burqa...

You go to meeting an important client or to a conference or anything and all you have to prepare is about what do you gonna talk there, not about your lip shade matching with your dress color or the sandal matching it. nothing...For me, its a boon, its a bliss....the passion on buying dresses from latest fashion line and everything else seem to be a stone age custom to me now.

Leave off such things, if you are not a fashionista, and just think what a sense of freedom and protection it gives. I am not advocating here for everyone to wear it, because that would be so foolish of me, but, i am trying to make some clarification to all those who think burqa is a forced curse on Islamic women. NO. I don't think so.

For children, they get a deeper self acknowledgement of their sex as female and they preserve every tiny little element of femininity in them, that they will never have a confusion over their sexual preferences when they grow up. And, for those, who think burqa poses only restriction and slavery on girls, let me make it straight: Girls wearing burqa are in schools, colleges, offices, governments and we are there where ever you are.

And, as far as those women doing foul play over not removing their veils and hijabs for security checks, they can always remove it to a woman police officer or any other woman authority in such a situation and I am sure every modern country in this world have women police officers and why can't they just let their women police force to do such security checks? The women are anyways meant to be handled by women police force even legally and why can't this be followed to avoid unnecessary issues like banning the burqa?

Not just for me, but every burqa clad woman, its just not a dress; its self confidence, self respect and identity.