The Dutch Upper House of parliament on Tuesday passed a law banning the wearing of face-covering veils in public buildings, such as schools, government offices and hospitals.

The Lower House approved the bill in 2016, after attempts to impose a more general ban on burqas and other face-covering veils failed.

The new law bans all face-covering garb, including for instance motor helmets and ski-masks, in public buildings, but not on the street.

Liesl Gerntholtz, who is the executive director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, speaks to TRT World from New York.

The law is billed as a way to make schools, hospitals and public transport safer, but critics say its only aim is to get rid of Islamic veils, such as the burqa and niqab.

The Dutch government’s main advising body in 2015 said the choice to wear an Islamic veil is protected by the constitutional right to freedom of religion, and that it saw no ground to limit that right.

It is also said the law was unnecessary, as only 200 to 400 women in The Netherlands wear a burqa or niqab, making it improbable that they would pose a big enough problem for schools, hospitals and public transport to merit a law.

Measures against the wearing of Islamic veils have already been taken in Belgium, France, Denmark and Spain, among others.