Sweden teacher quits job after being told to shake hands with male staff

Helsingborg (Sweden): A female Muslim teacher chose to quit her job after she was told to shake hands with a male colleague at Swedish school.

20-year-old Fardous El-Sakka was working as substitute teacher at a school since August. Fardous was asked to shake hands with a male colleague.

As her religious beliefs forbids, the aspiring teacher instead prefers to put her hand on her heart and bow to male teacher as a greeting.

But one of her male colleagues took offence and reported her to the Principal.

The Principal said she would have to respect the institution’s “core values” if she wanted to continue working there.

However, Miss Fardous decided to quit and reported the incident to the trade union Unionen. The case has now been reported to Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman, Mail Online reported.

The school Principal furthered that was not sacked, she “chose to leave after I explained what the school’s core values are”.

“I would also like to carefully point out that the issue was not her religious beliefs, but rather it is about choosing to treat men and women differently by shaking the hands of women but not men”, she added.

“If anyone is discriminated against here, it is the employee whose hand she refused to take. The man felt extremely offended,” told Lidija Münchmeyer, school principal to the newspaper.

With inputs from agencies