Fact check: Does proper dressing prevent defilement, teen pregnancies?

Homa Bay Woman Representative Joyce Osogo recently advised teachers and pupils in her county to dress properly to prevent defilement and teenage pregnancy.

“I urge male teachers to dress well in a manner that does not attract our girls into sexual relationships. A similar message goes to female teachers so that they don’t put our boys into such temptations,” she was quoted as saying in an article published in a local daily on September  25, 2023. 

She went on: “I urge parents to ensure their children dress well in and outside school. Both girls and boys should act non-suggestively.”

Does her advice hold any water? 

Verification

Under objectification theory developed in 1997 by Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, a woman or girl can be exposed to sexual objectification by virtue of her dressing. And sexual objectification can be in the form of men giving unsolicited commentary on a woman’s appearance, overhearing men comment on other women’s appearance or media fragmenting women’s images.

According to studies by Gurung and Chrouser, and Loughnan et al., on correlation between dressing and sex, revealing clothing does lead to objectification, which then triggers negative inferences about a woman. And they are likely to provoke sexual harassment.

That’s not all. Studies have also pointed to other reasons for sexual violence. Mustaine et al., (2014), for instance, established from their study on community characteristics and child sexual assault that economic hardship, housing density and presence of a registered sex offender were positively associated with child sexual assault. 

The United Nations Children's Fund, Save the child and  World Vision (2012), which are reputable child rights global organisations, also identify rapid social change, poverty, HIV/Aids, male-dominated social structures, cultural practices, transactional sex and weakening family structures as factors driving child sexual abuse.

Child welfare providers also link childhood abuse and unresolved abuse-related trauma to a vicious cycle of child sexual abuse. During a live show on KTN News last year, Childline Kenya executive director Martha Sunda said they had established a pattern of child sexual abuse in which men previously molested top the list of perpetrators. 

“What we have established is that many of the perpetrators of violence against children are actually survivors of violence themselves but their traumatic experiences were not dealt with when they needed to be dealt with,” she said during the show on December 1, discussing ways to combat gender-based violence (GBV).

“So they have grown with it [and] now [that] they are in a position of authority or responsibility…they don't know how better to treat these children that they are responsible for. So it becomes a vicious cycle.”

Also read: No crocs, miniskirts as Masinde Muliro university cracks down on indecent dressing

In an earlier interview with Getter Wasilwa, a clinical psychologist attached to the GBV recovery centre at Kenyatta National Hospital, she said having hundreds of abused victims whose wounds are covered and not healed is like living in a nation of “walking bombs”.

“I want people to know that rape, defilement or sodomy is the worst thing to do to a girl, woman, boy or man. It is like killing them over and over again,” she said.

She said a survivor who fails to receive psychosocial support may become a perpetrator in adulthood as they “want to pass the same bitterness to somebody else”.

Conclusion

Objectifying dressing is among many factors that trigger defilement whose result is teenage pregnancy. 

Verdict

 The advice by Homa Bay Woman Representative Joyce Osogo is, therefore, partially correct.

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