Work on Articles 24 and 41 of the Constitution has been completed, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said on Monday, indicating the ministry was prepared to present the changes to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Speaking to reporters in the capital Ankara, Bozdağ said: “Our work on Articles 24 and 41 of the Constitution is complete. We are ready to make a presentation if President Erdoğan requests it."
Article 24 of the Constitution regulates the "freedom of religion and conscience," while Article 41 regulates the "protection of the family and children's rights."
Bozdağ’s statements come after Erdoğan recently called on political parties to create the necessary constitutional regulations to protect the legal framework surrounding women's freedom to wear a headscarf.
In response to the Republican People's Party's (CHP) recent call to amend constitutional rights regarding the choice to wear a headscarf in public life, Erdoğan said: "Let's provide the solution at the level of the Constitution, not the law."
Turkish headscarf-wearing women have long struggled under laws that prevented them from wearing headscarves at schools as students and in public institutions as professionals, despite the prevalence of headscarf-wearing women in the country. The CHP had fueled anti-headscarf sentiment among the people and supported laws banning it.
The issue of the headscarf ban held an important place in public and political debates in Türkiye throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
The headscarf ban in Türkiye was first implemented widely in the 1980s but became stricter after 1997 when the military forced the conservative government to resign in an incident later dubbed the Feb. 28 "postmodern coup."
Türkiye's Parliament lifted a ban on female students wearing the headscarf at university in 2008 in a move championed by Erdoğan and which the CHP lawmakers, including Kılıçdaroğlu, had sought unsuccessfully to block in the constitutional court.
In 2013, Türkiye lifted a ban on women wearing headscarves in state institutions under reforms that the government said were designed to bolster democracy.
