Off with those plaits, says Kerala child rights panel

A student had complained that schools’ insistence on plaits for girls led to health problems

The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has said girl students in schools should not be compelled to part their hair and plait it.

The Commission has directed the Secretary and Director of General Education and the Higher Secondary Director to issue an order on the issue at the earliest.

However, heads of institutions can direct that students’ hair should be neatly arranged as part of maintaining discipline, it said.

The Commission, headed by chairperson Shobha Koshy and members K. Nazeer and Meena C.U., issued the directive on a petition from a Plus Two student of Cheemeni Higher Secondary School, Kasaragod, that the school authorities were insisting on hair being parted and arranged into two plaits.

A smelly situation

The petitioner pointed out that current school rules forced students to tie their hair even when wet and this gave rise to bad odour and led to problems such as hair breakage. To avoid this, girl students came to school without bathing, and this brought with it a host of health problems, she said.

The compulsion on girls plaiting their hair was also discriminatory, the complaint said.

Taking a serious view of the complainant’s stand that for hair to be plaited, it should have dried properly, the Commission also found that setting aside time in the morning for plaiting was difficult.

Compelling girl students to make two plaits such that it affected their physical and mental health was a violation of child rights, the Commission said, directing the authorities to report on steps taken in this regard.