A Muslim woman in Sweden who said she was discriminated against in a job interview for refusing to shake hands on religious grounds has been awarded financial compensation by a labor court.
The woman, Farah Alhajeh, 24, was interviewing for a job as an interpreter at Semantix, a language services company, in the city of Uppsala, north of Stockholm, in May 2016, when the person conducting the interview offered to introduce her to a male boss. Ms. Alhajeh said she placed her hand on her heart as a greeting, smiled, and explained that she avoided physical contact because she was Muslim.
She was shown to the elevator.
“It was like a punch in the face,” Ms. Alhajeh, who was born in Sweden, said by telephone from her home in Uppsala on Thursday, a day after the ruling. “It was the first time someone reacted, and it was a really harsh reaction.”
A Swedish labor court agreed, ruling on Wednesday that the company had discriminated against Ms. Alhajeh, and ordering it to pay 40,000 kronor, or about $4,350, in compensation.
The case, brought by
Sweden’s equality ombudsman, raised numerous thorny issues in a country already wrestling with questions of immigration and integration. Among them: whether a female Muslim employee could refuse to shake hands as a greeting in the workplace, said Martin Mork, who leads litigation at the ombudsman’s office.
Ms. Alhajeh, the labor court said in a statement, “adheres to an interpretation of Islam that prohibits handshaking with the opposite sex unless it is a close member of the family.” The court concluded that “the woman’s refusal to shake hands with people of the opposite sex is a religious manifestation that is protected under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
But the company with which Ms. Alhajeh had interviewed argued that its staff members were required to treat men and women equally, and that it could not allow a staff member to refuse handshakes based on gender.
The labor court ruled 3 to 2 on Wednesday that while the company was right to require that employees treat men and women equally, including in how they greet others, it could not require that the greeting in question involve shaking hands. What matters, they said, was consistency in how men and women were greeted.
“The court struck a balance between the interest of gender equality and religious freedom in the workplace,” Mr. Mork said.
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But Lars Backstrom, who represented the company in the case, said the labor court’s ruling had gone against Swedish laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace because of gender.
“The Muslim woman did not take the boss’s hand because he is a man,” Mr. Backstrom wrote in an email. “When it comes to employees who meet clients and other external people, it’s up to the employers to decide whether employees can manifest their religious or political affiliations.”
Ms. Alhajeh said that she was pleased with the decision. She said that she greeted men and women the same way in mixed company, by bringing her hand to her chest. But if she is meeting only with women, she might shake hands, she said.
“We live in a society where you have to treat women and men the same,” she said. “I know that because I am Swedish.”
“I have to practice my religion in a Swedish way that’s acceptable,” she added.
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