others, concerns about the effects of these restrictions on women’s education have been expressed by other international bodies. Case study: Leyla Sahin v Turkey In Leyla Sahin v Turkey,423 the ECtHR, for example, examined the case of a Turkish university student who was denied access to lectures and exams for wearing a headscarf. The Grand Chamber of the Court found that the applicant’s right to manifest her religion (Art. 9.1) was violated. However, it considered that the restriction on wearing a headscarf was justified under Article 9.2 of the ECHR because it was prescribed by law, pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the rights of others and public order, and was necessary in a democratic society where several religions coexist. On the other hand, the CEACR considered that restrictions imposed on university students wearing Islamic headscarves in Turkey could have the ‘effect of nullifying or impairing the access to university education of women who feel obliged to or wish to wear a headscarf out of religious obligation or conviction’.424 It therefore required the government of Turkey to assess the impact of these restrictions on the participation of women in higher education. Similarly, with regard to the ban adopted in France, the CEACR expressed its concern that such provision could result in some children, particularly girls, being kept away from public schools for reasons associated with their religious convictions, thereby reducing their possibility to find employment, contrary to ILO Convention No. 111.425 A similar view was expressed by the CEDAW in its Concluding Observations on Turkey and France.426 An analogous situation (a student being precluded from attending university for wearing a headscarf) has also been examined by the HRC in Hudoyberganova v Uzbekistan 427 under Article 18 of the ICCPR (freedom of religion). On 15 May 1998 Uzebekistan had adopted a Law on the Liberty of Conscience and Religious Organizations, Article 14 of which stipulated that Uzbek nationals cannot wear religious dress in public places. The HRC considered that to prevent a person from wearing religious clothing in public or private may constitute a violation of Article 18, paragraph 2, which prohibits any coercion that would impair the individual’s freedom to have or adopt a religion. At the same time, it recalled that the freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs is not absolute and may be subject to limitations, which are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others (Article 18, paragraph 3 of the ICCPR).428 In the case at hand, the HRC found that the applicant’s freedom of religion was violated as the state failed to justify the restriction in accordance with Article 18 (3). However, it highlighted that its decision in this case is: ‘without either prejudging the right of a State party to limit expressions of religion and belief in the context of article 18 of the Covenant and duly taking into account the specifics of the context, or prejudging the right of academic institutions to adopt specific regulations relating to their own functioning.’ 429 Minority and indigenous women and culture Minority and indigenous women, however, do not only face constraints originating from outside their communities. They may also face discriminatory stereotypes, traditions and customs deeply rooted in the communities to which they belong that can hinder the full enjoyment of their rights or even be deemed contrary to their basic human rights and dignity. While this is by no means an issue pertaining exclusively to minority and indigenous realities, and some of the practices referred to in this section can also be found among majority groups and in the dominant society, such issue can be of particularly sensitive nature in the case of indigenous and minority women, as will be seen below. Opinions as to what amounts to ‘practices which are based on the idea of inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes’ may differ nor only between indigenous and non-indigenous people, but also within indigenous communities.430 It has been pointed out that: ‘the objective is to bring religious and customary laws into conformity with international human rights law, not to extinguish religious or customary laws themselves or transform their jurisprudential character. In any case, whether, and to what extent, and how indigenous perceptions about religious and customary laws should and can be challenged, changed, or modified should be left to the process of internal discourse …’ 431 In the Baguio Declaration of the 2nd Asian Indigenous Women’s Conference (2004), indigenous women noted with concern that changes in their traditional social, cultural and political institutions and practices had resulted in a loss of values and codes of behaviour which uphold gender-sensitive structures and roles. At the same time, they committed themselves to engage with MINORITY GROUPS AND LITIGATION: A REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL JURISPRUDENCE 43