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A demonstration at the National Theatre in Uganda over the new law that prohibits women from wearing mini-skirts. — Daily Monitor

KAMPALA. — Women activists yesterday gathered in the Ugandan capital to demonstrate over what they called continued harassment of women and girls considered indecently dressed in public places.They said the recently signed Bill into law — Anti-pornography Act is in bad taste as it has sparked off series of acts of violence against women in public places.

Tina Musuya, the Executive Director at Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention said since the Bill was assented to, there have been daily media reports of women falling victim of mobs of men assaulting and undressing them as well as ripping them off of dignity while at the same time rendering public places unsafe for them.

Former Ethics and Integrity Minister Miria Matembe said members of the Coalition of the End the Mini Skirt harassment together with other women activists are considering to move a vote of no confidence against the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Fr. Simon Lokodo.

“This whole idea is absurd. I don’t condone indecency nor do I condone pornography but this law cannot be used as a pretext to cure the moral decadence and ethical degeneration in this country,” she said.

According Matembe, the law is misplaced and the least that cabinet and the Ugandan parliament can do is recall it once and for all.
“It’s high time we as women move a vote of no confidence, this is the opportune time for us to get a woman president. As for the parliament, we demand that the law be withdrawn,” said Matembe.

She warned that politicians should stop using culture and religion to make backward populist laws.
“My biggest disappointment is that 33 percent of that parliament is constituted of women and they were able to subscribe and pass a law whose definition of pornography is so vague that it talks about representing one’s sexual parts for primarily exciting people.”

She advised her fellow activists to join hands and get a lawyer immediately and take the law to court and challenge it as being unconstitutional and indiscriminately, saying that nowhere in the world, a law has been executed by mob justice as is the case now. — Daily Monitor.