Air Canada has left a young girl feeling “degraded” after forcing her to remove her hijab in view of other passengers last month.
12 year old Californian girl, Fatima Abderahman was waiting in line to board her flight to Toronto on Aug. 1 when an Air Canada agent approached her and demanded she remove the religious head covering, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The young girl explained that she wears the head scarf for religious reasons and repeatedly requested for a private screening area. However, Air Canada employees denied the request and forced Abdelrahman to publicly remove her hijab in a nearby tunnel.
According to the official website of the Department of Homeland Security, TSA agents, who are typically responsible for screening procedures, are required to accommodate private screening requests
Ehsan Zaffar, a Senior Policy Advisor at the US Department of Homeland Security, reiterated this in a 2013 article on travelers’ rights.
“Muslim women who wear the hijab (head covering or scarf) may ask to be screened privately by a female TSA officer if removal of a head covering is absolutely necessary,” he wrote.
