GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – A new Gaza law mandating separate classrooms for boys and girls from age nine is another worrisome sign that the territory’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers are gradually imposing their fundamentalist practices, the head of a Gaza women’s group warned Tuesday, April 2.
On Monday, April 1, Gaza’s Hamas-run parliament issued the new education law that requires gender segregation from age nine and also bars male teachers from teaching girls.
The idea of gender segregation in schools, particularly from the onset of puberty, is widely accepted in conservative Palestinian society. Even in the West Bank, run by a more liberal Western-backed self-rule government, most public schools separate boys and girls by fourth grade.
The separation, not mandated by law, is left to local authorities to decide according to residents’ sensibilities.
