Istanbul, Turkey – For Turkish women wearing the hijab, or Muslim headscarf, life in the public sphere was once impossible.
Beginning in the 1980s, after decades of state-sanctioned efforts to discourage women from wearing hijabs, a ban on wearing them in state institutions was implemented, affecting university staff, students, lawyers, politicians and others in the public sector. In 1997, after a military coup toppled an Islamist-led government, the ban was fully enforced, a longstanding prohibition that was only removed in 2013 by the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party), led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then prime minister.
