In recent year’s women’s fashion choices in Nigeria has become a hot topic on what women should and should not wear. Women are being told not to wear clothes that make them feel good about themselves. This essay will show how the moral standing of the society has been affected by the way people dress in Nigeria, which there is also a strict policy on what women are allowed to wear. Young women’s fashion is seen as a provocation to male students and a distraction to male students. There has been sexual has been sexual harassment and violation and the only way to retain sexual harassment and violation is to impose very strict dress code among female students and women in the society. There has been a call to criminalize and ban women’s fashion, the banning and legalization received legislative support in January 2008 when chairperson Ufot Ekaette presented bill against public nudity which has not yet been passed to law (Nigeria 2007).
Ufot Ekaette says that there is a relationship between sexuality and nudity, she also says that the way women dress has always been directed to men. And is an invitation to an erotic encounter with ramifications involved. She also says that women need to be disciplined on how to treat their bodies with respect and that the women need to be protected at all times ( Little 1973; Wilson 1985; Ivaska 2004).
In the Public nudity bill Ufot Ekaette defined ‘indecent dressing’ as when women are dressed in a way which exposes their breasts, belly, waist and two inches below shoulders and downwards to the knee that is females and males above the age of 14 years, (Nigeria 2007;1). She also states that this exposure makes men in the society weak, even the disciplined clergymen who are seduced by women wearing revealing clothing (Nageria 2007;2).
Ufot Ekaette makes reference to God in her bill as if God made her say all that she is saying,