Liberia: Finance ministry bans female employees from wearing wigs, coloured hair

Female employees at Liberia’s ministry of Finance are to be subjected to a new regulation – nothing financial but strictly hairy. The ministry has disclosed a decision to enforce a 2014 policy that bars employees from wearing coloured hair extensions or dying their hair, BBC Africa LIVE reported.  A number of women the BBC spoke to slammed the move as discriminatory and a move to police what women wore.  “The policy at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning is discriminatory, how does the hair colour of a woman affect the contribution she has to make to the overall goal of the ministry of finance?” A respondent quizzed.

“The laws and policies that are being crafted in our country is really influenced by our patriarchal system that attempts to control a woman’s body, the way she looks, the decision she makes, so that is the key problem,” she stressed.  “For me, I am from an international background, so the work (or) the goal, has nothing to do with the dress code. Because the way they dress, that is how they feel comfortable especially with the hair colour or the hair style. Once it does not contradict your work,” another resident said.  Another person however supported the policy saying: “… looking at our environment and seeing people come in with other lousy colour of hair more especially for employees, for me I think is a good one. At least to know how they dress, pink hair; you find it in a club, not to a working environment.”

BBC