CONTROVERSY OVER BURKINIS FOR SCHOOLGIRLS

GERMANY

BERLIN German politicians are embroiled in a row over whether schools should be allowed to distribute burkinis for pupils to wear during swimming lessons.

Franziska Giffey, the German minister of family affairs and a member of the centre-left Social Democrat party (SPD), said that children should be allowed to wear the garment — which covers the whole body, apart from the face, hands and feet — when they go swimming with their schools.

“The most important thing is the well-being of the children, and that means that all learn to swim,” Giffey said at an event on Sunday.

Pestalozzi high school in Herne, North Rhine-westphalia, purchased 20 burkinis for pupils, but some members of the Christian Democratic Party say it sends out the “wrong signal.”

Julia Kloeckner, Germany’s minister of agriculture and a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, said in response at the time that she was “surprised” about the decision.

Distributing burkinis creates a “misogynistic understanding in a place where children and teenagers are supposed to learn the opposite,” she said.

Schools in the western German state are under no obligation to provide special garments for pupils and the purchases were funded through donations, the school has said.