The Irony Of The Denim Shorts
AS AN ironic follow-up to my recent opinion piece regarding the illegal mini-skirt arrests in Rundu, my own daughter was accosted by a police officer and threatened with arrest, right here in Windhoek, for wearing shorts and a tank top. I was present at the time and witnessed the interaction. I firmly intervened to stop the illegal harassment of my child, but I couldn’t help but be shocked that something I just wrote about actually happened to me!
None of her private parts were exposed; her belly was not exposed (the tank top tucked into her shorts); the buttons on the top of the tank top were all fastened, there was no cleavage showing (her ‘girls’ were completely covered); the shorts were not ‘hot pants’ or ‘booty shorts’ (her behind was not peaking out below the bottom of the shorts), she wore simple blue jean denim shorts, cutting the thigh at a normal level. She was wearing white sneakers.
A female police officer leaned out of the window of her official vehicle and demanded that my child come over to the police car. My daughter went over to the car window and was told by the officer that she could be arrested because she was wearing shorts. Just like that. “You know I can arrest you for wearing those clothes?” she asked.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
My daughter, incredulous at the threat from a police officer, was conflicted because she has been taught to respect authority.
I intervened and asked the officer under what law in the criminal code, in specific, was she threatening my child with arrest? She said that my daughter’s clothing was ‘indecent and obscene’. There were no grounds for an arrest. I stated that there was no such law in Namibia stating that denim shorts and a tank top were ‘indecent’ clothing.
I was then told that I was ‘obstructing’. I asked the police officer to please arrest both me and my daughter, bring us before a magistrate and I would take up the issue there. The officer backed down, but continued to verbally argue in favour of her feeling that my child’s shorts were ‘bad.’ I assured the officer that I would take this matter further as it is a dangerous and frightening thing to have individual police officers making and enforcing their own version of what is in the criminal code in Namibia.
We can all have our own opinions on whether we like or dislike something, but, the existing law is what matters when it comes to arresting people. I challenge the head of the Namibian police force to please educate and train police officers on the limits of their role in our society.
I support our police forces; all citizens must. The police have to deal with the most challenging parts of what can happen in society; they see human beings at their very worst. It is not always a pleasant job, but they work hard to keep us safe.
If civil society wants to specify what clothing people should and should not wear, then we can do it through the existing legal processes for establishing new laws. Until then, the police cannot abuse their authority by threatening innocent citizens. When we turn a blind eye to the smallest encroachment on our constitutional rights, the rest of our protections are weakened.
Jacqueline W Asheeke
Windhoek