Women in Iran increasingly deciding not to wear headscarves in public

Women in Iran are increasingly deciding not to wear the veil in public, a senior journalist who visited Tehran has said.

Speaking on Sky News podcast The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim, NBC News's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said women's issues are "one of the most sensitive issues and one of the issues that's really at the cultural and political heart of the regime".

Women in Iran are required to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their hair in public under Iran's Sharia law.

Mr Engel said although there are signs in restaurants, cafes and hotels telling them they have to wear Islamic dress according to the law, women are "brazenly" not listening to them anymore.

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"You walk down the street and I would say just by observation, maybe 30-40% of women are not wearing headscarves anymore," he said.

Instead, the women would wear a little scarf around their necks "in case there's an issue", allowing them to "quickly just pull it over their hair".

"They're walking by the police stations, they're walking by government ministries. I've seen people walking with the women with their hair out, walking right past groups of what you would consider the morality police, and they don't say anything.

"They have stopped enforcing it on a daily basis and that is a significant change."

'I'm not sure this is the end of the road'

But he added: "I don't think they have given up. I'm not sure that this is the end of the road."

Mr Engel said protests across the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2023, which were countered with a "brutal" crackdown, "seem to have made a difference".

"The government, at least right now, has decided it doesn't want to fight that fight and it is not picking that fight. And people here are hoping that that is the start of significant changes."

'People are talking about it'

The reprieve could be temporary, he added, explaining: "It could be that the government has other priorities right now and therefore has put this one on the back burner, but it is happening and it's obvious and people are talking about it."

He said one woman had done a TV interview without her headscarf on with her "long hair down to below her shoulders" - something that would have been "unthinkable" a few years ago.

"Even in north Tehran years ago, people may not have been wearing them, or they were barely wearing them, but if we interviewed them on camera, they would quickly wrap themselves up so they wouldn't get in trouble, even if they found it personally annoying.

"Now she said 'let's do it' and didn't care. That's a sense of confidence that I've never seen in this country."

'Incredibly brave'

Yalda Hakim, Sky News's lead world news presenter, said it was "incredibly brave".

"We can't overstate how brave it is because it was a death sentence before for these women. It was unthinkable for them not to have their headscarves on," she said.

(c) Sky News 2025: Women in Iran increasingly deciding not to wear headscarves in public