How would dress code be enforced?

Jun 28, 2008

SO, Makerere University is after all not going to introduce or enforce a dress code for female students or ban the wearing of mini-skirts. I thought it was going to come to this.<br>

SO, Makerere University is after all not going to introduce or enforce a dress code for female students or ban the wearing of mini-skirts. I thought it was going to come to this.

There is simply no consensus on dress code at Makerere. Then there is the problem of enforcement.

Who was going to be charged with the responsibility of enforcing the dress code? How do you stop such enforcement from turning into a form of sexual harassment?

The history of imposing a dress code on adult women is redolent with examples of overzealous people with some paranoia of their own going to excess. In a bid to establish public decency, Idi Amin banned the wearing of mini-skirts, short trousers or pants and beards. It all turned to harassment and the so-called morality Amin wanted to establish was neither here nor there.

It can even be argued that the policing of the dress code, especially of women, was psychological compensation for the social and moral deficit of the regime.

Attention is deflected away from big moral issues in society such as misuse of public funds, failure to provide basic health services, excessive spending on armaments or large scale unemployment and turned to a single moral issue: dress code for women!

Rev Amos Kasibante
Leicester, UK

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