Supermarket chain lifts headscarf ban

Dansk Supermarked ends its decade-long practice of barring employees from wearing headscarves

May 30, 2013

As of today, employees will no longer be barred from wearing headscarves at some of the nation's largest grocers.

Dansk Supermarked, which operates Netto, Føtex and Bilka stores, has decided to end its policy of banning employees from wearing headscarves, a company spokesperson told public broadcaster DR.

Dansk Supermarked has for the past ten years forbidden employees who interact with customers from wearing anything on their heads, unless it was necessary for hygiene purposes. The company won a legal battle in the the Supreme Court in 2005 that upheld its right to enforce a dress code at its stores.

The headscarf ban came up in the media again recently when a 26-year-old Muslim was told not to apply for a job at a Netto store in Odense because of her headscarf. That led a group of Muslim women to encourage a boycott against Netto, Føtex and Bilka, and according to the company's director of communications, Mads Hvitved Grand, it worked.

"[The protests] caused us to separate the issue of headscarves from the rest of our dress code regulations because it doesn't really make sense to maintain this old regulation when we decided to update our dress code," Grand told DR.

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