Indecent dressing stands out as one of the things that I have impacted negatively in the Nigerian social system. In Nigeria, there have been attempts by our law makers, educational institutions and some individuals to regulate, dressing was sponsored by Senator Eme Ufort Ekaette, then Chairperson of Senate committee, women and youth in 2009. The bill which later came to be known as the nudity bill was meant to address issues of indecency and immorality and preserve cultural norms and values said Ekaette. But the Senator's move was heavily criticized by some groups, among which is the Nigerian Feminist Forum, who accused her of trivializing women's concerns and issues. However, a look at the way people, especially women dress these days is very itching. Nudity in our society has become rampant to the extent that some of our young ladies and married women enjoy dressing half naked.
The problem starts from the home. Some mother's that their children will be seen as civilised by imitating Western culture and way of dressing. Many mothers allow their girl child to get exposed to hilarious magazines or indecent movies where they copy the so-called styles from celebrities. They fail to realize that they are destroying the life of their children that way.
Though the society share a part of the blame for the moral decay we see on display, many still hold mothers responsible for the negative attitude because the way some of them dress means that they can't admonish their children to do what is right. They forget that it is what the child learns from home that they take on with them to the outside world.
Indecent dressing can also be copied due to peer pressure, it still remains the duty and responsibility of parents to try and keep an eye on the type of people their children associate with. This is because it is very easy for children to copy some things just because they see others(their friends) doing it.
Indeed the idea of being modest has to be taught early in a child's life. You should think of where your child would be in six years time and what you would want your child to hold on to very importantly. Trying to discipline a teenager has limited impact on behavioural change, because by the time children reach their teenage years, if they have not internalized why it is important to dress modestly and make education a priority amongst other worldly things, then there is little that can be done to slow down the train of immorality.
The way we dress says a lot about us. You can not appear like a whore and expect to be treated like a responsible human being.
Some people are of the belief that there is no way to control indecent dressing in our society today. But this is not true, if the conduct of our teenage boys and girls are not checked, it would lead to prevalence of s*xually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and other social vices and this could bring about untold hardship to the nation as a whole.
In the changing world that we have today, only positive aspects of liberalization and globalization should be tolerated and encouraged.
Imitating Western culture wholesale should be discouraged and we should start looking inwards and even promote our own culture that is decent and worth exporting to the outside world. Fashion is okay but it should never be a license to go about naked.
