A video showing the arrest of a young woman because her black mid-thigh dress was deemed indecent by Rwandan police officers has been reposted countless times on social media. In Rwanda, the government’s recent push for modesty is sparking rare dissent.
This small East African country has been ruled with an iron fist by Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide, which killed at least 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi. Credited with Rwanda’s impressive economic development, the Rwandan president is regularly accused of violating freedom of expression and silencing all opposition.
When the young woman in black was handcuffed in September, before being forced to lie curled up in the back of a pickup truck, outraged comments nevertheless multiplied online.
Especially since the arrest, which took place in the northwestern city of Rubavu, came just days after Tanzanian star Diamond Platnumz performed in Kigali, with several fans denied entry because of their clothing.
“I was wearing a short blazer dress, nothing really scandalous, but I was turned away. I was furious,” 24-year-old Grace Uwinkamiye told AFP. “It was very humiliating. For the first time, I felt that I had to fight for my rights.”
- Apologies -
Many Rwandan women reacted in the same way. “A woman’s body is not an invitation to control. No woman should be told what she is allowed to wear,” said famous model Pamella Uwicyeza angrily.
The police were eventually forced to apologize for the Rubavu incident, saying that the officers involved had been arrested and that the young woman had been released.
Rwanda launched a rather unpopular campaign against “indecent behavior” in August. Police carried out raids on private parties. Bars and nightclubs were subjected to new, very strict closing hours.
The government says it is concerned about overly wild parties and the fact that young women are being encouraged by the fashion industry to wear clothing that arouses “sexual desire.”
“When we do not produce enough of our own cultural references, other people’s definitions of beauty, desire and modernity can very easily become our own,” Sandrine Umutoni, Secretary of State for Youth and the Arts, explained on X.
These arguments sparked mockery in neighboring countries, particularly Uganda, where army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, known for inflammatory or provocative posts, published a message saying that “no one will bother a woman wearing a miniskirt” in his country, threatening anyone who tried to do so with arrest.
Many Kenyan internet users also defended Rwandan women on social media.
- “Frustrated” -
“The discussion is not only about miniskirts,” Rwandan lawyer and political analyst Louis Gitinywa told AFP. “It is about how people are governed. People are frustrated that decisions are made without their involvement.”
Outside the venue where Nigerian star Rema performed over the weekend in a large Kigali arena, young people wore conspicuously modest outfits. The BK Arena, where the event was held, had warned them: “intimate areas must remain properly covered.”
Asked by AFP about her trousers and blouse outfit, one spectator, who declined to be identified, told AFP: “This is the first time I have dressed like this for a concert. I didn’t want to miss Rema’s show for anything in the world, (but) I couldn’t risk being subjected to their usual degrading treatment.”
A foreign student, for her part, lamented that Rwanda was “difficult to understand.” “It is not a religious state — they close churches. But when you think it is a secular state, they arrest women wearing miniskirts and close bars and clubs earlier,” she said.
President Kagame, who has never hidden his lack of enthusiasm for evangelical places of worship that have flourished in recent decades in Rwanda, as elsewhere in Africa, has closed thousands of them, describing some churches as “dens of bandits.”
The former military commander nevertheless appears to demand proper conduct from his people. “It seems as though the authorities are irritated when people have a moment of celebration and happiness,” the foreign student said.
