Malawi - After Attacks, President Says Women Have Right to Choose Clothing - NYTimes.com A spate of recent attacks on women wearing pants and miniskirts prompted President Bingu wa Mutharika to declare Thursday that women had the right to choose their dress. He also denied that he had ordered street children and vendors to attack women, who have been stripped of their pants and short skirts. "Every woman and girl has the right to dress the way they wish," he said on national television. Women were banned from wearing pants during decades of dictatorship, but indecency laws prohibiting them were repealed in 1994.