Violence Against Women
Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika on Thursday told women to be free to wear "what you want", saying the country had no dress code barring women from wearing trousers.
"You are free to wear what you want. Women who want to wear trousers should do so as you will be protected from thugs, vendors and terrorists," Mutharika said in a live state radio broadcast.
He was commenting for the first time as women were preparing to stage a sit-in Friday to defend their right to wear trousers, shorts and miniskirts after police arrested a gang for terrorising trouser-wearing women by stripping off their clothes.
Organisers said they were calling on all women and men of goodwill to urgently converge tomorrow for
constructive engagement on the protection of women and the defence of their rights in a democratic Malawi.
The protesters would gather in the commercial capital Blantyre “in solidarity with the victims and to express our indignation at such barbaric treatment of mothers, wives and daughters of our country,” the organisers said.
Mutharika said he was surprised that vendors were harassing the women when in fact "wearing a trousers is more protective to a woman than wearing a skirt."
He pushed back on rumours that he ordered vendors to strip naked women wearing trousers in Lilongwe.
"This is strange. It's not true that I have asked people to terrorise women...if anything I am one of the 10 leading fighters of women's rights in Africa."
Police said yesterday they had arrested 15 “thugs” in the capital Lilongwe, 350 kilometres north of Blantyre, for stripping women and robbing them.
Until 1994, women in this conservative southern African country were banned from wearing trousers under the dictatorship of Kamuzu Banda.
Vice President Joyce Banda, who has fallen from favour with Pres Mutharika amid a split in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, told journalists the incident was the result of economic woes the country was facing.
“There is so much suffering that people have decided to vent their frustrations on each other,” she said.