24-year-old Rwandan lady faces 2 years in jail for ‘shameful’ dress after police arrest

A 24-year-old lady, named Liliane Mugabekazi, is in trouble for wearing a see-through dress to a concert in Rwanda.

According to Rwandan authorities, the see-through dress that we see Efia Odo and others wear in Ghana is tantamount to a crime in the East African country ruled by Paul Kagame.

Liliane who is Rwandan was arrested by the country’s police force on 7th August for wearing what has been described as “shameful” clothing. “She faces up to two years in jail for “public indecency“, prosecutors said Thursday, 18th August 2022.

According to news18.com, Liliane Mugabekazi’s August 7th arrest came after she attended a concert by popular French musician Tayc eight days earlier. “She attended the concert while wearing clothes that reveal her private parts… clothes that we call shameful,” prosecutors said, accusing her of committing a “serious crime“.

“It is on these serious grounds that we ask the court to remand Mugabekazi for 30 days. She is suspected to have committed public indecency,” the spokesman for the prosecution, Faustin Nkusi, told AFP and added that the court would announce on Tuesday whether she would receive bail.

The arrest has sparked outrage among across social media but Rwandan government officials including former justice minister Johnston Busingye backed the move.

“The current issue of our young men and women who drink and drug themselves unconscious, appear in public literally naked is objectionable,” tweeted Busingye, who is now Rwanda’s ambassador to Britain.

“I support the efforts… to address it.” Also in a TV interview last week, police spokesman, John Bosco Kabera rebuked what he described as “immorality and indecency among young people”.

“This problem is escalating… you find an individual wearing only a shirt only… without pants or shorts. These people then go to public places dressed like that, with clothes that look like nets,” he continued.

When the TV host asked him if “such people did not have a right to dress as they please,” he replied: “The first right is to dress well, not dressing indecently.”

In recent years many Rwandans have fallen foul of the country’s strict indecency laws. In March this year, police arrested a 20-year-old woman for “public drunkenness and indecent assault” after a video of her lying on the ground in an alcoholic stupor circulated on social media.