Uganda MPs pass law banning minis

KAMPALA

Uganda’s parliament has passed a new piece of legislation banning miniskirts and which seeks to clarify the offence of pornography in the country’s laws.

The government on Friday rode on its view that pornography has become such an “insidious social problem” in the country to get the Anti-Pornography Bill through Parliament.

While some lawmakers claimed that the Bill violates people’s rights, majority agreed with the government and enacted it into law.
“With the enactment of the Bill, my dream has been fulfilled,” said Fr Simon Lokodo, the Ethics Minister.

However, some MPs complained that the Bill’s definition of pornography was too broad and that it went against Uganda’s tradition of being tolerant of cultural diversity.

The proposed law provides for the creation of the Anti-Corruption committee that will implement the law.

Mr Steven Tashobya, the chairperson of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, whose docket shepherded the bill, said pornography fuels sexual crimes against children and women— including rape and child molestation.

The committee said though the various laws already in existence prohibit pornography, there is no single law to comprehensively deal with the problem of pornography.

The Bill defines pornography as any cultural practice, form of behaviour or form of communication or speech or information or literature or publication in whole or in part or news story or entertainment or stage play or broadcast or music or dance or art or graphic or picture or photography or video recording or leisure activity or show or exhibition.

It also prohibits any combination of the preceding that depicts unclothed or under-clothed parts of the human body such as breasts, thighs, buttocks and genitalia, a person engaged in explicit sexual activities or conduct; erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement and any indecent act or behaviour tending to corrupt morals.