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.”