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Sep. 27th, 2004 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingBus conductors in Swaziland have vowed to assault and rape female passengers who wear mini-skirts, sparking outrage among women's groups in the conservative African kingdom.
The threat followed this week's arrest of two conductors and a bus driver who were charged with indecently assaulting an 18-year-old high school pupil.
The pupil was attacked at a bus rank in Manzini, Swaziland's commercial centre, by a group of men who shouted at her for wearing a miniskirt, cut it off and then gangraped her, witnesses told local media.
A bus conductor calling himself only Licandza said: "Women who wear miniskirts want to be raped, and we will give them what they want."
The bus drivers banned miniskirts on buses earlier in the year, saying they were distracting and encouraged lustful thoughts.
The government said it condemned the crime.
"What the young woman was subjected to could be tantamount to murder, as the health status of the perpetrators is not known," Prime Minister Themba Dlamini said.
Swaziland is ruled by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch and has one of the highest rates of HIV and Aids in the world.
The threat followed this week's arrest of two conductors and a bus driver who were charged with indecently assaulting an 18-year-old high school pupil.
The pupil was attacked at a bus rank in Manzini, Swaziland's commercial centre, by a group of men who shouted at her for wearing a miniskirt, cut it off and then gangraped her, witnesses told local media.
A bus conductor calling himself only Licandza said: "Women who wear miniskirts want to be raped, and we will give them what they want."
The bus drivers banned miniskirts on buses earlier in the year, saying they were distracting and encouraged lustful thoughts.
The government said it condemned the crime.
"What the young woman was subjected to could be tantamount to murder, as the health status of the perpetrators is not known," Prime Minister Themba Dlamini said.
Swaziland is ruled by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch and has one of the highest rates of HIV and Aids in the world.