Ghana Women Told Nudity Is Shameful

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29024, 13 October 1959, Page 11

Ghana Women Told Nudity Is Shameful

[From a Reuter Correspondent]

ACCRA. increasing attention is being paid to the problem of nudity in Ghana’s backward northern region. In many parts of this region, both men and women go about almost nude. Until comparatively recently, they were not conscious of their nakedness and felt no shame. But gradually they are being taught that nudity is shameful and that at least the women should clothe themselves. Leaders of the anti-nudity campaign are the Federation of Ghana Women and the Ghana branch of the All-African Women’s League. The Government has also ordered a social survey into the underlying causes and extent of the problem and has promised the women's federation that when the survey has been completed, a decision will be reached on what action should be taken. Some sociologists, for instance, believe that it is not so much a problem of nudity as a problem of clothing. Many of the people in the hot. dry north live in extreme poverty and just cannot afford clothes for themselves and their children. Even when they can buy a length of cloth to twist round their bodies another problem arises—keeping the cloth clean. There is a widespread scarcity of water in the northern region and many of the women in outlying villages have to walk miles to fetch a jar of water. Obviously, they think twice about using the precious water for washing clothes instead of for cooking, drinking or personal hygiene. Another aspect of the question was put recently by a writer, Miss Doris Davis, in a monthly magazine, “The Ghanaian,” who wrote that the trim, graceful, semi-nude women of the north "might well feel that their sisters from the south are unshapely and in some cases obese in appearance when draped in yards of cloth which are certainly not as cool and functional as the lack of costume in the northern region. Reverse in West? “A rather timely comparison between feminine beachwear and this question of nudity can hardly be overlooked.” she continued. "The bikini is nothing but a wisp of fabric and certainly is revealing. It is the height of fashion for beachwear in Europe and America. While Ghana is striving to become Western with this new policy of compulsory dress for her women, the Western ■world is making a reverse decision. It is hard to say just which way progress lies.” Ghana is not alone in her fight against nudity. All over West Africa, leaders of opinion are becoming more and more conscious of the age-old nakedness of back-country, and even a few city, dwellers. In Guinea, President Sekou Toure has decreed that the fashion of nudity down to the waist must go. His campaign started in the cities with the state visit of the Prime Minister of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, to Guinea last April, and even women in up-country places were ordered to cover their bosoms.

Nudity consciousness has also penetrated to the proud, isolated pagan people of east-central Nigeria, who live in the hills near Jos, in Nigeria’s vast northern region, and who come down to the town each day to sell firewood in the market. Columns of them can be seen padding down the dust tracks into and away from town, clad only in a bunch of leaves in front and a bunch behind. Once they near the town, however, they attempt to cover other parts of their torsos and in the market they squd behind their piles of firewood in such a way as to screen themselves from the eyes of passers-by. Nudity and Sin

European missionaries in the area have been trying for years to get the pagan women to cover their nakedness and they think that they are slowly but surely schooling their minds to the idea that nudity, though perhaps comfortable, is sinful. To combat nudity in Ghana’s

northern region, women's associations have been distributing free clothes to the more needy. Representatives of these associations have also toured the area lecturing the women on the virtues of clothing. Appeals for clothing have been circulated throughout most other parts of Ghana. But nothing snort of a national crusade can eradicate nudity in the opinion of Mrs Hannah Kudjoe, national organiser of the All-African Women’s League in Ghana. After a recent visit to the north, she said: “I think the greatest test for women of Ghana today is to see that the evil of nudity is stopped at once.”

But some observers believe that it will take quite a long time to eliminate all the causes—the heat, the water scarcity, the poverty. and tradition—of the northern region’s nakedness.