France is likely to come in for much outside criticism for its burqa ban.
The opposition Socialist Party opposes the burqa but frets that outlawing it may be counterproductive.
For six months, a cross-party parliamentary inquiry has been holding hearings about the burqa.
Ms Verdonk insisted the burqa was not an acceptable part of public life in the Netherlands.
And she added that in some cases, the burqa actually helps her to do her job.
Afghanistan is the only country where women wear the burqa in any great numbers.
The burqa, Noorjehan says, was part of the problem when she went to work in the relief camp.
One priest suggested Indian women should cover themselves completely (such as donning the Islamic burqa) to prevent rape.
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The nationalist Convergence and Union coalition wants a burqa ban and to make future immigrants take Catalan-language tests.
Socialist mayors from Barcelona to Lleida want to ban the burqa, even though the courts say they cannot.
Every one of them, some completely covered by their burqa, would run away, afraid to appear on camera.
Others worry that women, who are often under domestic pressure to wear the burqa, would be unfairly punished.
Under the 2004 law, the burqa is already banned in public schools, as it is on identity cards.
Last year, France's top court denied a Moroccan woman's naturalization request on the grounds that she wore a burqa.
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France is not the only European Union country to consider banning the burqa.
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But I'm not putting on a burqa, not because anyone tells me to.
So thousands of women had to be employed to search burqa-clad female voters.
"Eventually, in my burqa, I convinced them I was their long-lost aunt, and they let me in, " she said.
Her crime: She wore a shawl covering her body instead of a burqa.
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Merah also was opposed to France's recent move to ban women from wearing a full veil, or burqa, Molins said.
Since U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001, some women, in the capital of Kabul at least, have shed the burqa.
So do religious conservatives, who commonly apply the burqa as a statement of power, a tool to demonstrate their presence.
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The (communist) chairman of the parliamentary commission, which is due to report at the end of January, favours a burqa ban.
After that beating, she was stuck in her home for months until someone was able to give her a used burqa.
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It impels them to assume a body language least likely to draw attention to cover themselves, as it were, in an invisible burqa.
She wears a burqa when she works - the head-to-toe covering often associated with the Taleban, who strictly enforced its being worn.
When women did leave their homes, they were required to wear a blue burqa, which covered their bodies from head to toe.
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In the rest of the Middle East, most women don a veil of one kind or another, though almost none wears the burqa.
They can now be punished if they leave their houses unaccompanied by a close male relative, and wearing a shroud-like garment called a burqa.
"September affected not only my life but that of all of the women of Afghanistan, " said Suhaila Sashina, from beneath her bright, blue burqa.
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