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The Standard: Kenya bans used underwear

Leave our underwear alone: That was the message from those opposed to the Kenya Bureau of Standards ban on the sale of used underwear, as an MP said he would rather have his constituents walk naked than put on second hand innerwear.

Up the nudists!

Shinyalu MP, Dr Bonny Khalwale, said walking naked was a lesser evil than contracting skin diseases from used underwear, bras and socks.

Down with disease!

On Monday, the Kenya Bureau of Standards managing director, Mr Kioko Mang’eli, said the ban was meant to protect consumers from contracting skin diseases.

But a skin specialist, Dr S O Adala, dismissed the argument saying clothes do not spread Tuberculosis and leprosy or cholera listed by the Kebs as some of the diseases that those who wear the clothes risk contracting. Adala, however, warned that one would almost likely contract a skin condition if the original wearer had such diseases and wore them without proper laundry.

Death to the professional skeptics of bourgeois science!

Mr Peter Kegode, an agri-business analyst, said the ban was ill timed and insensitive to the poor.

"The ban will affect the poor, those who live on less than a dollar a day."

Up the minimum wage!

The move, he said, showed lapse in quality control. "Mitumba (second hand clothes) are inspected before importation. "He said Kenyans do not buy mitumba by choice, but because that is what they could afford.

Khalwale said the ban should be supported, but agreed that Kenyans lacked alternative clothing and asked the Government to fast track the revival of the textile factories like Rivatex, Kicomi and Thika Titex Mills.

Nationalize the textile industry!

"We can salvage the country from mitumba only when we revive the cotton industry and bail out the textile firms," Khalwale argued.

In Nakuru, traders selling the undergarments said the ban was unfair both to them and their customers.

Death to kulak traders and cosmopolitan moneymen!

Some of the traders were selling their wears at a throw-away prices to clear stock.

Ms Patricia Mweni who sells bras said none of her customers has ever complained of skin diseases. She said she washes the bras before selling them and she advices her customers to do the same.

Death to private washing!

Up the glorious laundry collectives!