[3] Although the majority of Maldivian women today wear a veil or what is commonly known as a hijab,[4] this is a recent phenomenon experienced in the past two decades or so, possibly as a response to increased religious conservatism.

In the early 21st century, women and girls were subjected to growing social pressure to veil, resulting in hijabs and black robes becoming common public wear by 2006.

[5] In 2007, the US Department of State's annual International Religious Freedom Report referenced one instance in which a female student was restricted from attending school for wearing a headscarf, despite civil servants wearing them at work without issue; [8][9] conversely, there are reports of women being pressured into covering themselves by close relatives;[10] of unveiled women being harassed, and of school girls being pressured to cover their heads by their teachers.

[3] However, those women who refuse to wear a veil or decide to remove it face social stigma[4] from both their families and members of the public.

Even though the Maldives has been a 100 percent Muslim country for nearly a thousand years, there is no record of stoning, or execution for murder unlike most other Islamic or Non-Islamic nations across the world.

[17][18] But on average they earn less than half the salaries of men in the workplace,[19] possibly as a consequence of a higher male education levels a few decades ago.