Some stories do not begin with headlines or speeches. They do in the quiet rhythm of a loom.  

Aycan Ozonay, now 49, was once selected to teach the revered tradition of kilim (rug) weaving in her hometown of Mardin in Türkiye, but even that thread of hope was pulled away because she wore a headscarf. 

At a women’s community centre known as CATOM, she had been selected by her instructors, along with another candidate, to become a rug-weaving instructor in 1997.

But when she arrived for the interview, what the 21-year-old wore — a headscarf — spoke louder than her skill.

Her friend, who was not covered, was chosen. Aycan was quietly dismissed.

“They didn’t even allow me to teach rug weaving,” she tells TRT World. “But I stayed on as a student. For two years. I waited. I hoped. I was among the best. But it didn’t matter.”

Aycan was a victim of a headscarf ban, which resulted in many women being denied entry into universities, workplaces, and even ceremonies.

The ban has deep roots in Türkiye’s political history. Following the 1980 military coup, the state introduced a public clothing regulation which prohibited women from wearing headscarves in public institutions.

Initially limited to civil servants, including teachers, lawyers, and parliamentarians, the restriction gradually expanded. By the 1990s, the ban extended to universities and non-state institutions.

The policy became especially strict after the 1997 coup, when the military issued a memorandum that reshaped civilian life under the guise of protecting secularism. The headscarf, once a personal expression of faith, became a symbol of resistance and exclusion. 

The ban was finally lifted through a democratisation package in 2013. 

Born in 1976 in a sandstone mansion in Mardin, Aycan came from a large, modest family. Her grandfather was a saddle maker with 12 children. Her father worked in trades; her mother was a homemaker. She was the fourth of six siblings.

At age 10, Aycan began wearing a headscarf, not out of pressure but desire. Her uncle had gifted her a scarf. She wore it with joy.

“It came from within me,” she says. “It made me feel whole.”

But middle school changed that. The scarf that made her feel seen became the reason she was erased. Teachers whispered. The principal blocked the school gates.

Remove it or don’t enter

“I wasn’t even allowed into the courtyard (of the school). They told me: remove it or don’t enter,” she says.

They forced her to make a decision. She chose her scarf. And with that, her education ended.

Aycan was denied her middle school diploma. They told her she could return only if she removed it. She never did. The dreams she carried, like graduating and becoming a teacher, were left unfulfilled. Her headscarf became the line they refused to accept.

Her older sister lost her public service job, and her cousins had to leave the country to study elsewhere because they chose to wear headscarves. Aycan, who wanted nothing more than to learn, was told: no diploma, no classroom, no future.

What she didn’t know was that she was one among thousands, whose lives were disrupted by the coup that only intensified the ban.

After stepping away from school, she found her way to Quranic education and later to open a high school. Despite becoming highly skilled in rug weaving, she was denied a teaching post.

"They told me I was good enough. Just not with the scarf."

Years passed. She got married. Raised three children. Life moved forward. 

But the ache stayed. 

Hero’s journey

One day, many years later, her daughter Sevval began preparing for university entrance exams. Aycan sat beside her, helping her go through the preference guide.

Then she paused.

Her biggest motivation was there. She came across a special university quota for women above the age of 34.

"It felt like destiny had left a door slightly open for me," she says.

She applied to Mardin Artuklu University’s Elderly Care programme in 2023. Sevval chose Sociology.

Aycan could finally enter a university campus not as a guest but as a student. This time, she was not alone. Her daughter walked beside her.

"We got ready together every morning," Aycan recalls. "We shared the canteen, joined the same student clubs. It made me feel young again."

For Sevval, it was an awakening.

“At first, people didn’t believe she was a student,” Sevval says. “Professors would ask why I brought my mother to school. When they realised she was a classmate, they were amazed.”

Through this journey, Sevval saw her mother in a new light.

Mother, a wife, and a worker 

“I had heard her stories growing up. But only now, walking beside her, did I feel the depth of her pain. She wasn’t just my mother — she was a woman who had been silenced,” says Sevval.

Graduation day came two years later. They stood side by side, robed, veiled, and full of quiet fire.

“When we threw our caps into the sky,” Aycan says, “it felt like all the dreams I had buried rose with it.”

She pauses. “It wasn’t just a diploma. It was justice.”

For Sevval, the moment still glows. “I had other graduations but this was different. This was ours. A daughter standing with her mother. A dream that refused to die.”

The experience reshaped their bond. Already close, they became something more: witnesses to one another’s strength.

“She was a student, a mother, a wife, and a worker — all at once,” Sevval says. “She taught me that a woman doesn’t have to choose one role.”

‘It gives me hope to see how far the Republic of Türkiye has come’

Inspired by her mother, Sevval began her own academic project — a TUBITAK-funded sociological study on Mardin’s pigeon culture, exploring how people relate to birds in changing urban life.

“My mother’s story taught me that reclaiming your past makes space for others to fly,” she says.

And to women who think it’s too late?

“Education has no expiration,” Aycan says. “If I could speak to the girl they turned away at the school gate, I’d say: One day, you’ll return. Not alone but with your daughter by your side.”

Sevval agrees. “When I tell my future children about that day, about throwing our caps into the sky, I will tell them there was a scarf beneath it. And a story inside it. And that it was ours.”

“It gives me hope to see how far the Republic of Türkiye has come,” says Aycan. “To witness women taking their rightful place in public institutions, to see our headscarf-wearing MPs represent us in parliament, and to know that education is a right for everyone.”

Sevval adds, “One day, I will tell my children that the caps we threw into the sky after our journey as students were a symbol of freedom.”

And Aycan has a message for young women: “I want to remind them that education has no age or deadline. Learning is a lifelong journey. We must keep growing, renewing ourselves, and adapting to the times.”