By John Ikani
Following an accident that claimed the lives of nine people and injured 19 others in Agali Sub-county, Lira District on January 10, women have been banned from sitting in front of the trucks as part of the efforts to mitigate the rampant road accidents in Lango Sub-region.
The order handed down by traders association in northern Uganda prohibits drivers from permitting “even their wives” in the front cabin of lorries, adding that the decision banning female passengers was made in the name of safety.
“Some of them wear short dresses which expose their thighs and distract drivers, and the drivers end up causing accidents and people on board die,” Patrick Opio Obote, chairman of Lira’s mobile market vendors group, told AFP Wednesday.
“The ban takes immediate effect and all drivers and passengers are complying.”
Women’s rights activist Alice Mugwanya Kabijje said the edict was unnecessary and “male chauvinism” in action.
“This is another attack on women by the officials in Lira,” Mugwanya said.
“It is totally against the constitution of Uganda where exclusion of a certain gender to freely participate in the daily work is prohibited.
“The attribution of a dress code to a road accident is clumsy reasoning and an indicator of how a woman is still segregated in our societies and men prefer them to stay in the kitchen,” she said.
Local media quoted Uganda’s Deputy Director of Traffic and Road Safety as saying Lira fell within a region with the second-highest rate of traffic accidents over the recent festive period.
