Civil servants to wear pants in defiance

MBABANE – Female civil servants are being urged to defy government by wearing pants at work. According to government procedure, women are not allowed to wear pants during working hours.

Vincent Dlamini, Secretary General of the National Association of Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU), said the call for the defiance was prompted by government’s reluctance to address their request to revoke a General Order that infringed on the rights of women.

Dlamini said the General Order that infringed on the women’s right to wear clothes of their choice was archaic.
He said the association had recently written to the ministry of Public Service reminding it of the essentiality of the amendment of the Government General Orders.

He said women had been registering their concerns with NAPSAWU over the snail pace by government to revoke the Order that banned them from wearing pants at work.
The NAPSAWU secretary general said Evart Madlopha, the Principal Secretary in the ministry of Public Service, was officially informed last year to renounce the Order as it confined women to a certain dress code.
He said the dress code stipulated that women should not wear pants during working hours. Dlamini said it was silent on the dress code for males.

The secretary general said women civil servants should put pressure on government to renounce the Order by wearing the pants. He said the union would support them. He advised them to wear formal pants.
“There are executive female suits and other formal pants, which they can wear.

These pants can be worn at the workplace. Since we don’t see any commitment by the government to revoke the Order, we are of the opinion now that women civil servants should wear the pants. They must defy the government and we shall support them,” said the NAPSAWU’s secretary general.

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