Zambian female police officers have been banned from wearing miniskirts. Zambia’s Police Assistant Director of Legal and Professional Standards announced the directive Tuesday, reports Zambia Daily. Charity Chanda said the ban aims at ensuring female officers maintain professional standards. She said a prescribed attire for the female officers had been made available.
“What is the length of your skirt if you are a female officer? We have seen many female officers wear mini-skirts as uniform. We have a prescribed length for the uniform,” Ms. Chanda said.
“Let it go with what is required and everything should match the color of the uniform,” she added.
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Ms. Chanda advised that female officers should be guided by the service’s core values to minimize or eliminate the continuous receipt of complaints from members of the public.
She further urged the officers to respect human dignity because failure to do so will land them in problems.
Last year, Zambia’s leading university also banned female students from visiting the library “half-naked”, arguing that the skimpy outfits were a distraction to their male counterparts.
A notice pasted in front of the main library at the University of Zambia, with over 35,000 students, admonished female students to dress “modestly” when using the facility.
“It has come to our attention that some female students dress half-naked as they use the library, a situation which is disturbing the male students,” read the notice.
“We, therefore, advise the female students to dress modestly as you use university facilities,” the University.
A Non-Governmental Organization’s Coordinating Council described the directive as an infringement on the students’ freedom of expression.
“Management at the University must not engage themselves in violating the human rights of the female students of self-expression. Why are they blaming the women? They should blame the men for lacking self-control.
“It’s their irresponsible male ego which should be blamed. If they haven’t learned how to control themselves, this is an exercise for them to do it. They should have just ignored it and told the men who went complaining to them to say where is your self-control?
“How are you going to change nappies of your daughters if you just get aroused by legs? No one is moving around with no pants, so it’s all in the imagination of the onlooker, so they should have just told them off instead of encouraging them,” said the NGO’s chairperson Sera Longwe.
