To curb the menace of indecent dressing, parent should dress decently and act as role model to their offspring and religious institution should always promote the culture of decent dressing.
Most parents and guardians fail to teach their children manner of dressing appropriately and some children no longer wear native dresses but choose to wear foreign dresses like miniskirts, armless gowns, crazy jeans and others, thereby looking like insane persons.
The latest trends among young ladies now is that they dress without their underwear, bra and pants, thereby further revealing their full breasts and buttocks to the full glare of the public.
This unfortunate societal ill has now eaten deep into both the young and old. It is unfair to shift blame on all parents but majority of the blame must be attributed to them as stated above, as they are the first agent of socialization.
Everything a child must learn, it must first be learnt in the home. Reasonable parents do not welcome abnormal dressing, but some parents and guardians encourage their children to dress indecently by buying them these dresses that exposed their bodies.
Some parents also dress in a shabby manner, this their children copy. The society ill is also common among artistes in Nigeria. Many of our youth see them as role model, so they copy their lifestyles and mode of dressing.
Abiodun Omowa, a student of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic wrote that, Indecent dressing has become the norm among our youths in Nigeria today. There is hardly any city in this country that is not facing this immoral act. Indecent dressing is offensive, improper and morally unacceptable.
These dress patterns are morally abusive and reveal the high rate of moral decadence in the society in our time. The issue is a social misconduct, rampant among the youth and the major cause of assault and sexual harassment in the society.
Comparing the olden days dressing to nowadays, the difference is clear. Youths of the olden era were so cultured, well trained with moral upbringing. In comparison with today, you will weep for this country, this generation and the generations to come.
For instance, ladies in the past put on Iro, Buba and Gele while the boys used to wear Agbada, “Yeri” and Fila but today foreign culture has become the order of the day.
Youths instead of embracing their native dresses as their heritage, prefer wearing foreign dresses that cannot cover their bodies, simply because they see these kinds of dressings in foreign music videos, movies and exhibitions.
If someone dresses properly and decently, such will attract respect and his/her dignity will be protected, but when one dresses indecently, he/she will certainly attract harassments and even rape.
But in our society today, if a young person dress decently, especially ladies, she is perceived as naive, uncivilized, and not exposed. Another major root cause of indecent dressing among our youth is peer influence, most particularly those in the tertiary institutions.
Some join bad association and immediately their mode of dressing changes. In order to minimize indecent dressing in our society, parents should be alive to their responsibilities.
Parents should all the time control the quality of films, books, websites, that their children watch and visit.
Religious leaders should also take much effort and fight the immorality in the society, they should preach on morality and the advantages of dressing good in the society. Religious institutions must promote the culture of decent dressing among the youth.
Government should tackle the issue of indecent dressing with iron hand. Government should inculcate on our youth reasons why they should dress well in the society. The mass media must promote importance of decency and bad effect of indecency among youth.
There should be formation of campus brigades to check the dressing pattern of students, this will check the menace in the institutions. Dressing in a manner that parents, society and religion frown at is not civilization.
The way you dress show whether you are respected or not, most youths now walk on the street half naked, with tattered clothes all in the name of fashion. Ironically, many innocent guys have been arrested along with armed robbers just because of the way they dressed.
There is no moral justification for a man or a child from a good home to relax or keep dreadlocks, piercing his ears all in the name of fashion. There is a saying that “you are addressed because of the way you dressed.” Sadly, most ladies have been sexually abused because of their mode of dressing.
The question is – who do we blame for these social malady – the parents, the society or the peer groups.