Why Kenyan women's skirts will only get shorter

A short hemline is loved and condemned in equal measure. At one end of the debate feminists clamour to wear what they want, as they make a statement of liberation while at the far end of that debate are moralists who are quick to pass judgement on women based on the length of their hemline. Year in year out, they have fought to have it closer as possible to the ground.

Esther Passaris has come out strongly in defence of women and their dress code.

“A woman expresses herself with her clothes. Dressing is like art. I don’t see why women cannot wear what they want yet a man can take off his shirt in public,”says the businesswoman.

The social entrepreneur says that as long as a man won’t touch or strip her, she does not mind cat-calling or being stared at.

“If I don’t get such attention I would start wondering whether I’ve grown too old. Attention is a good boost for woman’s ego. It is also a less confident way for men to appreciate women.”

In less than a month the number of women who have been stripped in various parts of the country has maintained a steady growth. First, a woman was stripped at a busy matatu terminus opposite the National Archives.

Then there were other attacks in, Kitengela, Mombasa and Thika before the wave hit different parts of the county. Before long, news on Kenyan men stripping women became fodder for international media including CNN and Al Jazeera.

Former Miss Kenya, Cecilia Mwangi (pictured above) says that although she dresses for herself and for comfort, every culture has boundaries.

“I hate wearing too tight or too short. On the other hand, I also think about others when I dress up,” says the mother of one.

“I have attended serious meetings in Europe in my hotpants and no one seemed to care. It’s unfortunate that we are judged by what we wear locally. And the hem length decides whether you are morally on track or not.”

Following these attacks, Kilimani Mums Marketplace a Facebook group for women, staged #My dress, My Choice demonstrations in the streets of Nairobi on Monday to protest against the rising incidents of women getting stripped.

“You should never take off a woman’s clothes forcefully, and if you have to, she must authorise it,” says Ann Kiarie, an active member of Kilimani Mums.

Like hundreds of other women, Kiarie, a nurse and a mother of two, joined the protests on Monday in Nairobi city.

These protests were sparked by a video which went viral of one of the assaults. The trend has elicited both condemnation of the woman’s attackers, and vitriol supporting violence against women who dress “indecently” in public.

But this is not the first time women are hitting the streets to drive a point home. In February this year, Uganda women in minis marched through the streets of Kampala after President Yoweri Museveni signed the anti-pornography bill – or the ‘miniskirt law’ which bans ‘indecent dressing.’

Just like in Nairobi, the protests also came after several incidents of women in short skirts being publicly harassed and assaulted. Proposing the legislation last year, Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo said that women who wore “anything above the knee” should be arrested.

Bishop George Mwarandu of The Lords Gathering Centre says there are no two ways about indecent dressing.

“There is the correct way for a woman to dress and the wrong way. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that: ‘Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.’ That verse is self-explanatory,” says Mwarandu who also advises women to dress decently when going to his church.