The German constitutional court has ruled that Muslim girls must take part in school swimming lessons alongside boys.
The ruling comes just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a partial burka ban.
If girls object on religious grounds, they can wear burkinis, the court said, as burkinis meet Islamic strictures governing modesty.
Burkini is a swimming garment designed to give full-body coverage for Muslim women.
In a case brought by an 11-year-old from a Moroccan family, judges at Germany’s highest court said that schools had a duty to promote “social behaviour” and that mixed swimming lessons are “not a serious impairment of religious freedom”.
The girl had refused to wear a burkini arguing that it did not conform with Islam’s ethic of decency. However, judges at the court in Karlsruhe ruled that she had failed to “give a plausible explanation of why the burkini is not sufficient to preserve Islamic rules of clothing”.
The girl cannot be named under child protection laws.
