Note, "covering oneself" is not the black and long clothing worn by a female muslim individual, but an impersonal verb to infinity that includes both the sexes: male and female.

Islām is a religion of moderation* and modesty. Allāh the Most High loves the humble. Therefore it is prescribed both for the male to protect his private parts and for the female to do the same.

The dress that you wear gives a message to the surrounding people about the your personality, mood, opportunities and occasions.

Safeguarding private parts can be understood both in an active and passive sense. Passivity is the most common case in women, that is, one rarely hears about woman sexually molesting someone. In the most common of cases, women are the victims.

*Moderation: Nowadays another issue has to do with this very term linking to Islām. What people mean by "moderated Islām" today is nothing but modifying the Sharī'ah Laws bringing them to a lower intensity of application. This is known as Ghuluww (ar. Exaggeration). Since it is an exaggeration in easing Islām in cases ease is not needed to be added further. Ghuluww is a sin. There is a counterpart of this exact sin which brings the Sharī'ah Laws to extreme applications and consequences, making the action harder, a hardship which finds no expression in Islām, this is also ghuluww, exaggeration forbidden by Islām. Rather,
the Principle the Last Sharī'ah is based upon is free from any type of exaggeration (that is, leading neither to extra-easy applications of the rules, known as "Moderated Islām" nowadays among the mass, nor to extreme unneeded hardships). Therefore, let's ask ourselves a question, if there is neither unneeded ease nor unneeded hardships in Islām, what is there in Islām? -Moderation; this is the moderation meant hereby.

The Holy Qur'ān prescribes for women to cover themselves so as not to attract attention so that they can go unnoticed even in the most prying eyes. This is the unknown reason of the "veil" which is very misunderstood by almost everybody. Some say that it is oppression; are not rape and other forms of violence such as stalking the real oppression? These are the Istat (National Institute of Statistics of Italy) informations:

31.5% of 16-70 year-olds (6 million 788 thousand) have suffered some form of physical or sexual violence during their lives.

20.2% (4 million 353 thousand) have suffered physical violence, 21% (4 million 520 thousand) sexual violence, 5.4% (1 million 157 thousand) the most serious forms of sexual violence such as rape (652 thousand) and attempted rape (746 thousand).

13.6% of women have suffered physical or sexual violence from partners or former partners (2 million 800 thousand), in particular 5.2% (855 thousand) from current partners and 18.9% (2 million 44 thousand) ) from the former partner. Most of the women who had a violent partner in the past had left their partner because of the violence they suffered (68.6%). In particular, out of this 68.6%, for the 41.7% violence was the main reason for breaking the relationship, for the remaining 26.8% it was an important element of the decision along with other fatalities.

24.7% of women in Italy have suffered at least one physical or sexual violence by non-partner men: 13.2% by strangers and 13% by known people. In particular, 6.3% from acquaintances, 3% from friends, 2.6% from relatives and 2.5% from co-workers.

Women suffer threats (12.3%), are jostled or tugged (11.5%), are slapped, kicked, punched and bitten (7.3%). In worse circumstances they are hit with objects that can seriously damage the body (6.1%). Less severe form such as attempted strangulation, or severe forms such as burns, suffocation and the threat to use or use of weapons are less frequent. Among the women who have suffered sexual violence, the most widespread are physical harassment, i.e. being touched or hugged or kissed against their will (15.6%), unwanted relationships experienced as violence (4.7%), rape (3%) and attempted rape (3.5%).

The most serious forms of violence are exercised by partners, relatives or friends. The rapes were committed in 62.7% of cases by partners, 3.6% by relatives and 9.4% by friends. Even physical violence (such as slaps, kicks, fists and bites) are mostly the work of partners or exes. The unknown are authors especially of sexual harassment (76.8% of all the violence committed by strangers).

Foreign women have suffered physical or sexual violence similarly to Italians during their lifetime respectively (31.3% and 31.5%). Physical violence is more common among foreigners (25.7% compared to the sexual harrassment esteem 19.6%), while sexual violence is more common among Italians (21.5% against 16.2%). Foreigners are much more subject to rape and attempted rape (7.7% vs. 5.1%). Moldovan (37.3%), Romanian (33.9%) and Ukrainian (33.2%) women suffer more violence regardless of its being sexual or pshysical.

Leaving aside the part in which the authors are partners and ex, the attention must be placed on strangers. It is useless to repeat, everything is cited. This is the situation in Italy.

Now let's move on UK.

Key statistics about sexual violence

In the year to the end of March 2017, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated:

20% of women and 4% of men have experienced some type of sexual assault since the age of 16, equivalent to 3.4 million female and 631,000 male victims; women's percentage is way higher than men's.

3.1% of women (510,000) and 0.8% of men (138,000) aged 16 to 59 had experienced a sexual assault in the last year (in reference to 2017).

In January 2013, An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales, the first ever joint official statistics bulletin on sexual violence released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Home Office, revealed:

Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men (aged 16 - 59) experience rape, attempted rape or sexual assault by penetration in England and Wales alone every year; that's roughly 11 of the most serious sexual offences (of adults alone) every hour. 

Only around 15% of those who experience sexual violence report to the police

Approximately 90% of those who are raped know the perpetrator prior to the offence

Ask why does all of this happens!

The answer is obvious: people see the shapes, the body, the face, the expressions, from all this springs a morbid desire in those who are only a poor outcast of society, especially if unknown, leading to stalking or, in more desperate cases, to sexual violence.

But if you had not been revealing all these details listed and were covered by a long dress, could you get to this? How would a stranger be attracted to another stranger whose face is unknown?

Have you ever heard of a woman being raped in Italy or elsewhere wearing a burqa? Years ago snatching of ladies' niqab (covering part of the face) off their faces was witnessed, something done by the local cheap-minded boys, this is roughly classifiable as violence but yet it is not rape. It is quiet natural that those who dress with pride and with the tendency to "show" draw the attention towards themselves, the modesty and humbleness, on the other hand, does not tend to attract.

Here is a more concise analysis of stalking, always Istat percentages for Italy:

In the first year of the 12 months before the interview (in 2014), the victims of stalking by former partners were 147 thousand, which is the 1.5% of total women (11.4% if women have left from the former partner within the last 12 months before the interview took place). There are 478 thousand (2.2%) of those who claim to have suffered it from strangers.

Let's move on to UK:

Data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales shows up to 700, 000 women are stalked each year (2009-12) although the British Crime Survey (2006) estimated 5 million people experience stalking each year but there are no official statistics on the percentage cyberstalked.

1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men will experience staking in their adult life (Homicides, Firearm offences and intimate violence 2009/10; Supplementary Volume 2 to Crime in England and Wales 2009/10 2nd Edition. Home Office Statistical Bulletin 01/11).

Secondly, the motif of the "veil" is, as a consequence of the first reason discussed above, that is, safeguarding oneself from harassment let it be sexual of physical, the honor of female beauty seen as a gift given to her which she should jealously safeguard.

Beauty ... for who is it, then?

For the man who will treat them like queens for a lifetime, as long as he is a good Muslim: her husband; Which is also romantic, do you not think?