Members of county assemblies should discuss pertinent issues

Kenya: While the need for decency and morality cannot be gainsaid, dressing is a personal choice as long as it does encroach on the space of others.

The Lamu County assembly is in the process of tabling a motion, only one week after a similar one was rejected by the Kilifi County Assembly, barring women from wearing miniskirts and dressing skimpily.

This move is not only discriminatory as it targets only women leaving out men wearing shorts. It also infringes on fundamental freedoms and rights granted by the Constitution.

Should the traditional Swahili loin clothes that don’t fare any better than miniskirts be banned as well?

There are more pressing matters that need the urgent attention of county assemblies across the country and miniskirts are not one of them.

In Kilifi and Lamu, for instance, because high levels of poverty and illiteracy, the tendency to marry off under-age children is rife, child sex tourism involving foreigners appears to be tolerated.

There is a serious dearth of education as children and nubile girls engage in sex to make ends meet and the repulsive and archaic tendency to kill the elderly is rampant.

These are the main issues that need to be given priority among others.

Members of county assemblies should not draw huge allowances for sitting and discussing mundane matters that don’t add value to the lives of those they represent. Most counties lack basic facilities like clean drinking water, poor medical services and poor accessibility due to bad roads.

Huge mountains of uncollected garbage that litter most towns not only render them an eyesore, they are a health risk to residents.

These are tasks the MCAs should spend mopst of their time debating, not the length of a clothe.