When a woman poses naked for a glossy magazine, it’s called art. But when she stages a nude protest in public, it’s called public indecency.
Last week, Gugu Ncube staged a one-woman protest in Parliament, semi-naked, to register her labour plight with Unisa. She wanted to get the attention of the President.
According to Ncube, she was sexually harassed by her boss at Unisa. She reported the matter to the
relevant authorities but nothing was done about it. She even escalated the issue to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, but still nothing was done. Instead, she was axed.
The one-woman protest did not get the attention of the President. Instead, she got the attention of the police. She was unarmed, but more than ten police officers apprehended her. What danger did she pose?
Towards the end of 2018, the President took time from his busy schedule to listen to the heartbreaking stories of abused women in Pretoria. One female (who is serving time in jail for murdering her partner for abusing her) stripped naked in front of the President and cameras. No one said it was public indecency.
When is stripping naked in public indecent, and who decides on that? It doesn’t look like there’s a common definition of public indecency. So, everyone interprets it the way he or she sees it. But I think we need a common definition.
