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Dubai Municipality offices give abayas to scantily-clad women
The service is intended to ensure customer satisfaction since there have been many complaints about scantily-clad female customers.
Dubai - The customer service centres in Dubai Municipality offices are offering abayas to women who do not follow the emirate’s dress code during their visit to the centres.
Municipality officials told Khaleej Times that the service is intended to ensure customer satisfaction since there have been “many complaints about scantily-clad female customers”.
They said the move is also to avoid inconvenience to female customers by making them go back to “dress properly” as per the emirate’s dressing policy issued by the Dubai Executive Council.
According to the ‘Dubai Code of Conduct’ published on the council’s web site, an official business or business casual dress code shall be adopted by all visitors of Dubai’s government buildings as well as business buildings and office towers. “Access to Dubai’s official and business buildings may be denied if dress code is considered inappropriate.
“In all other public places such as streets, shopping malls and restaurants, shorts and skirts shall be of appropriate length. Moreover, clothing shall not indecently expose parts of the body, be transparent, or display obscene or offensive pictures and slogans,” the code on decency reads.
Complaints
An official, who did not want to be named, said there had been many complaints from customers which prompted the municipality to offer abayas to women “who are not sensitive to the emirates’ culture” and not following the dress code.
“You won’t believe what kind of clothes some women wear when they visit us,” she said. “We have got several complaints from both male and female customers about indecent dressing style of many women. Even European people (who have a liberal dressing style) have complained about certain women,” the official said.
She claimed the staff at the customer care centres ask the “inappropriately dressed women” in a polite way if they would mind wearing the abaya since it is not the proper way to be dressed in government offices. “They do it without any hesitation. Some women take selfies and some have even taken the abayas home with our permission,” she said.
Behavioural list
Boards are also placed to display a “behavioural list” for the municipality centres, according to which inappropriate dressing, smoking, pets and emotional behaviours are not allowed.
Diya Nair, an Indian expatriate, said she was asked to wear an abaya when she recently visited Al Manara Centre of the municipality that hosts customer care centres of various government departments under one roof.
“I had gone to apply for a visa. My shoulders were covered but my frock was of knee length only. They asked me to wear an abaya maybe because my leg was not covered,” said Nair.
She said she did not mind wearing the abaya. However, she said she was concerned about hygiene issues since she saw only a couple of abayas in the rest room.
The municipality official said abayas are washed daily and visitors are not made to wear the unwashed ones.
Another official said certain government entities like the Dubai Courts are already providing the same service and more are slated to follow suit.
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