STRASBOURG (France), Jan 16: The European Parliament quashed an attempt on Wednesday to call European Union states to ban Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in primary schools across the 27-nation bloc.

A draft of a non-binding report on children’s rights in the European Union said lawmakers were concerned at the multiple violations of rights affecting girls from a migrant background and urged EU states to ban headscarves and hijab at least at primary school.

This would “anchor more firmly the right to be a child and to ensure genuine and unenforced freedom of choice at a later age”, the draft said.

The report was authored by Italian lawmaker Roberta Angelilli from the assembly’s centre-right UEN grouping.

But a Socialist bloc motion to reject the section on headscarves was voted through by 367 to 200, with 134 abstentions.

The wearing of headscarves in schools and at work is a sensitive topic across the European Union.

Last year, an 8-year-old Muslim girl in Spain stayed off school when told to remove her headscarf. She returned to classes after her college was ordered by the regional government of Catalonia to let her wear the traditional head cover.

The decision by the regional government contrasted with a ban on headscarves in state schools in France as well as some colleges in the Netherlands.

Britain and many other EU states allow the headscarf in the name of civil liberty, or let schools decide their own policy.

Supporters say a ban helps Muslim immigrant women better integrate in their host countries. Opponents say they are discriminatory.—Reuters