JAKARTA - Ifa Hanifah Misbach was 19 when her father died - and her family told her he would not go to heaven because she refused to wear the hijab, a Muslim head covering.

Misbach now works as a psychologist in Bandung, West Java, where she has counselled dozens of Indonesian girls who have been ostracised, bullied and threatened with explusion from school because they too declined to wear the veil.