Hijab Disputes Expose Legal Gap In Faith-Based Schools
NAIROBI, Kenya — This past January, a 15-year-old named Samira Ramadhan walked through the gates of St. Mary’s Lwak Girls High School in Siaya County, located in western Kenya, wearing her hijab.
Ramadhan and her parents had been assured by the principal and several staff members at the time of admission that she could continue wearing it, just as she had throughout primary school.
A few weeks later, that assurance fell apart.
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A priest affiliated with the Catholic institution, told her that although she had been allowed to wear the hijab initially, she would have to remove it after some time. Her father had already paid tuition for the term, but eventually decided to withdraw his daughter and transfer her to a school that accommodates Muslim students.
About 20% of students in Kenya attend a private school, but the African country’s mission schools are not private institutions in any straightforward sense. Many were built on public land, receive government funding and are staffed by employees of the Teachers Service Commission, which is a state body and admit students through the national placement system.
Ramadhan’s story went national and became a topic of debate in parliament on Feb. 26. Garissa Woman Representative Amina Siyad flagged it as religious discrimination and demanded that the education ministry compel the school to readmit the student. The Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Julius Bitok, faced lawmakers demanding the immediate reinstatement of the student.
Bitok subsequently issued a directive ordering the immediate readmission of Ramadhan, emphasizing that no one should be denied access to education on the basis of religion.
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale called the school’s actions unconstitutional, discriminatory and unacceptable, saying it violated Articles 32 and 37 of the Constitution, which both guarantee freedom of worship and expression, including the right to wear religious attire.
Elsewhere, over 250 miles (400 kilometers) away in the coastal city of Mombasa, Muslim clerics and elders stormed Consolata Primary and Junior School in March to protest the administration’s refusal to allow students to wear their hijabs. They also accused the administration of forcing Muslim students to attend Catholic Mass.
“Our girls are not allowed to wear hijab in school, which is very wrong,” said Mwanaisha Ali, a local resident. “Look at the Catholic nuns in this school. They wear their veils and look dignified. Why deny our daughters the same right?”
In late March, Islamic religious leaders in Kitui County accused St. Ursula Tungutu Secondary School of barring Muslim girls from wearing their hijabs. Five students were reportedly compelled to remove their headscarves and punished for refusing.
Three incidents, three counties, three Catholic or church-affiliated schools — all within the same school term. A seven-year-old ruling that still sits on the books makes each of these confrontations legally complicated.
In 2019, Kenya's Supreme Court, in a 4-1 decision, set aside a 2016 Court of Appeal ruling that had found it discriminatory for church-sponsored schools to bar Muslim students from wearing the hijab. The Supreme Court quashed the decision on a procedural technicality, sidestepping the underlying constitutional questions entirely.
The judges also directed the school board to consult with parents and students to amend relevant school rules to provide for religious exemptions, and ordered the Cabinet Secretary for Education to formulate guidelines aligned with the constitutional right to freedom of religion.
The original dispute had started in 2014 at St. Paul's Kiwanjani Day Mixed Secondary School in Isiolo, sponsored by the Methodist Church of Kenya. The controversy started when Isiolo County’s deputy governor requested that the school permit Muslim students to wear hijab and white trousers.
The church sued. The High Court sided with the church, finding it unconstitutional to allow students of a certain religion to wear different uniforms. The Court of Appeal reversed that decision in 2016, then the Supreme Court reversed the decision in 2019 on a technicality. Those guidelines that the court ordered were never issued. That gap is where the current disputes live.
The Lwak case in 2026 went to the High Court, which certified the petition as urgent. The petition, filed by Ramadhan’s father, cited alleged violations of laws on equality and freedom from discrimination, human dignity, freedom of religion and the right to education.
Sheikh Ali Juma, chair of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims in Narok County, said the matter could have been resolved through interfaith dialogue and without going through the courts.
“Asking the girls to remove the hijab is equivalent to asking the Catholic nuns to remove their veils,” he added.
Muslim families and their lawyers argue the hijab is not a fashion accessory but an act of worship, and that preventing a girl from wearing it in school is functionally denying her access to education unless she renounces a religious obligation.
Church-affiliated schools draw on both the 2019 Supreme Court ruling and an ethos argument, positing that students who enroll in faith-based institutions implicitly agree to the school's religious environment, including dress codes. That push and pull has never been resolved, and without binding Ministry guidelines, it falls on individual girls to absorb the consequences.
Joseph Maina is a Kenyan journalist. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and media studies from the University of Nairobi. For the past decade, he has served as a correspondent for various print and digital publications in his native Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.