[ 2017-04-06 ]

Celebrated Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo

Rape has nothing to do with girls' dressing - Ama Ata Aidoo to Otiko
Rape has nothing to do with the way girls dress,
celebrated Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo has said
in direct response to an admonishing to
schoolgirls by Minister of Gender, Children and
Social Protection, Ms Otiko Afisa Djaba that:
“If you wear a short dress, it’s fashionable
but know that it can attract somebody who would
want to rape or defile you. You must be
responsible for the choices you make”.

Ms Djaba offered the advice when she spoke at the
90th anniversary and Speech and Prize Giving Day
of the Krobo Girls’ Presbyterian Senior High
School in the Eastern Region on 25 March.

After a wave of public flak, she justified her
comment saying: “It was a strong advice from a
mother to her children. I wasn’t in anyway
encouraging rape with my comments. I have
daughters and if they dress in a certain way and
they are going out, I call them and ask them to
change it or wear another clothing over what they
are already wearing.”

Commenting on the matter on Thursday, 6 April
after Ms Djaba, in the morning of the same day
repeated her views, Prof Ata Aidoo took to
Facebook to express the following sentiment:

“Honourable Minister Otiko Afisa Djaba, in a
speech on Joy FM this morning, (April 6, 2017) we
heard your views again on girls, their mode of
dressing and rape, which the presenter in an
introduction had already described as "notorious"
anyway! But you not only repeated those views but
were quite expansive with them.

“Ms. Djaba, it is a pity that you don't seem to
have any empowering message for the girls of
Ghana. Rape in Ghana and across the whole world
has nothing to do with the way women and girls
dress. It has everything to do with entitlement to
women's bodies and sexual violence.

“Besides, you of all people should know that
people talk about clothes and appearances when
they have nothing to say about anything else that
requires attention. The young people of this
country are educated and socialised to be timid
already anyway, and your current campaign will not
help.”

Source - classfmonline.com

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