‘Female MPs harassed in Parliament’

Kampala Woman MP Nabillah Naggayi Sempala

What you need to know:

MP Nabillah Naggayi urges women to participate in politics in order to influence policies that will change societal perceptions about them.

Kampala- Kampala Woman MP Nabillah Naggayi Sempala has said female legislators are sexually harassed by their male counterparts.

Without naming the culprits, Ms Naggayi said society pities women to the extent that even when female legislators are more educated than their male counterparts, the former are still looked at as sex objects.

“You see them (male MPs) trying hard to convince you, but I can be crude (to the MPs) and I tell them that they cannot afford me. No one can write a six-month cheque for me,” Ms Naggayi said at the weekend.

She was speaking at a function organised by Mentoring and Empowerment Programme for Young Women (Memprow), a civil society organisation, in Kabalagala, a Kampala suburb.

Women mentored
Memprow mentors young women and girls in schools to abstain from early sex and equips them with leadership and self-reliance life skills.

Ms Naggayi urged women to participate in politics at all levels in order to influence policies that will change societal perceptions about women since they are the majority in the country.

The MP also said the public should not help women define what indecent clothing is but be left for the women’s conscience since many males violate the same.

Earlier this year, there were several incidents in several parts of Kampala, especially taxi parks, of skimpily dressed women being undressed after the State Minister for Ethics and Integrity, Fr Simon Lokodo, announced that President Museveni had assented to the Anti-Pornography Bill.

“What saved the women is the feminist nature of the Speaker (Ms Rebecca Kadaga) who ordered the minister to withdraw his statement,” Ms Naggayi said.