Female guests at Kampala hotels may be thoroughly groped in the days ahead — in the name of national security, of course.
Says the (government-friendly) New Vision:
“We don’t always allow men to check women’s breasts but we have now got reports that terrorists have devised bra bombs. We appeal to women security personnel to thoroughly check women’s bras,” said Lodovick Awita, a counter terrorism expert.
Awita was talking at conference for hotel owners, the paper says. There are several other security measures recommended, including better records of hotel guests and keeping a careful eye out for odd behavior. But my eyebrows are raised at the first sentence, in which “the Police have urged hotel owners and security staff to thoroughly check women’s bras following a threat by terrorists to use ‘bra bombs’.”
There’s obviously room for humor in this, but security is also a serious matter. So, too, is the invasion of personal space — and one’s own body — even in the face of terrorism threats. And: “A threat”? By “terrorists”? That’s the sheerest level of “information”… What if there were “a threat by terrorists” to use vagina bombs?
And I’m puzzled by this bra bomb thing. How would it work? Does Al Shabab really have a legion of female suicide bombers ready to slip little devices into their bras? I’m pretty incredulous, and if I were a Ugandan woman, I’d want the government to share a bit more information with me before it decided that hotel proprietors and their security agents can give me a thorough, nationally necessary grope.
A wee bit more on this here.
