NGO: Lift hijab ban on hotel frontliners

PETALING JAYA: A coalition of civil society organisations has urged several ministries to change the discriminatory policy of prohibiting women wearing the headscarf (hijab) to be frontliners in the hotel industry.

The Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the Universal Periodic Review Process (Macsa) urged the Tourism and Culture, Women, Family and Community Development ministries to take action and change the policy that “clearly discriminates women on religious ground”.

“There is no data to suggest that hotel staff wearing hijab negatively impacts customer satisfaction but forcing staff to refrain from wearing hijab, on the other hand, unnecessarily limits the pool of qualified and potentially productive workers available for such jobs as they will shy away from pursuing work at hotels that restrict their personal religious expression.

“This is a particularly bad policy in a Muslim-majority country like Malaysia, where the clientele expect to see staff who represent the nation,” it said in a statement issued by its co-chairmen Azril Mohd Amin and associate professor Dr Rafidah Hanim yesterday.

It was responding to a statement by Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) defending its members’ policy of prohibiting frontline staff from wearing headscarf, claiming that it was merely an international practice and not meant to be discriminatory.

International hotels in Malaysia, said MAH, followed a standard operating procedure and policy on the matter.