Kenya women in Ethiopia and South Africa join #MyDressMyChoice protest Kenyan women attending the Ninth African Regional Conference on Women Beijing +20 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday donned miniskirts and held placards protesting stripping of a woman in Tom Mboya street, Nairobi over indecent dressing. The protest in Addis coincided with similar protests in the Nairobi CBD in which hundreds of women turned up for a peaceful demonstration following the stripping of the woman at the Embasava bus terminus. While speaking at the conference in Addis, Esther Kimani, executive director at the Young Women’s Leadership Institute said; “It is not about women in miniskirts but the continued violations of womens rights to bodily dignity, integrity and autonomy which has to stop. “These incidences have occurred for the last one month in Nairobi, Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania are unacceptable. These acts have angered women and made them afraid to walk the street in their own country,” added Kimani “We want the people who did this to be arrested and prosecuted,” said Naomi Mwaura of the Flone Initiative and a participant at the ongoing conference. As Kenyan Women in Addis attending the Ninth regional conference on Women, we stand in solidarity with our sisters in Kenya. No one has the right to strip me based on their own ideas of how I should dress, said Yvette Kathurima of The African Women Communication and Development Network (FEMNET). During the protests in Nairobi, demonstrators handed over a petition to Chief Justice Willy Mutunga against the act. While receiving the petition, Mutunga said: “Our commitment to the justice of women and girls is based our constitution and our laws” Attorney General Githu Muigai also released a statement in support of the protests through his twitter handle. Dressing is a way of life, the AG said, quoting French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. He said stripping of someones clothing is a violation of Articles 27(3) which states that women and men have equal treatment before the law and (5) which states that no one shall be discriminated against on any grounds, as well as Article 28 which states that “Every person has inherent dignity and the right to have that dignity respected and protected.” A section of Kenyan women living and working in South Africa also staged a protest in solidarity with the victim and protesters back at home.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 15:37:10 +0000
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