Domestic Violence Vis-à-vis Uganda's Middle Class Woman

A few months ago, I was chatting to a Ugandan colleague – an outgoing, outspoken woman in her mid 20s doing well working as a programme officer for a successful NGO in Uganda’s capital city. I note these features to highlight the fact that she would be towards the more privileged, well-educated and outward-looking end of the social spectrum in Uganda. She is currently single but was telling me that she’d like to have 2 children – one boy conceived naturally and one adopted girl. I asked why this was (fearing the worst) and she explained that – in her experience – it is just too hard growing up as a girl in Uganda. At the time, I felt sad that a middle-class, ‘empowered’ Ugandan woman still felt this way – but the more time I have spent here, the more I have come to see her point.

On the face of it, daily life seems equitable enough but Ugandan society is still an essentially patriarchal one. The average Ugandan woman may not have to cover themselves like their lighter-skinned colleagues in Saudi Arabia, but their value is still somehow calculated based on their ability to reproduce and serve men in a household. And though Ugandan law states that women have equal rights in terms of access to education, primary drop-out rates for girls are much higher than those seen for boys. Things are changing but it is a painfully slow process…

Violence against women is a serious problem in Uganda. The 2006 Demographic and Health Survey found that 70% of women had experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. Most of these acts of violence were committed by an intimate partner.[1] These findings were mirrored in article in the New Vision newspaper a couple of weeks ago which found that 70% of all women interviewed in four districts in the North / East of the country had been beaten by their husbands during the last few months, and a few by their brothers.[2] Research has shown that girls frequently experience coerced sexual initiation in many communities across Uganda, with this often being viewed as a normal part of relationships. Further, though Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was outlawed in Uganda a few years ago, it has not been eradicated – in 2010, researchers found that 200 girls aged 14 to 18 years were forced by their parents to undergo FGM in Pokot region alone.[3]

Before I ponder what this means, I want to say that I am not pretending for one minute that this problem is unique to Uganda. Domestic violence is uncomfortably common in developing countries too, where we are decades further down the gender equality path. The Home Office for example reckon at least 1 in 4 women in the UK will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime.[4]

However, the scale of gender-based violence (GBV) here is comparatively vast and seems to reflect an insidiously ‘normal’ imbalance in power across the gender divide. Generally domestic arrangements and girl/boy interactions, I suspect, look rather like they did in the UK fifty plus years ago in many respects… women folk are expected to be focused on raising children and keeping homes tidy / their man well fed, whilst men are free to work and otherwise do as they please. Infidelity is common and is almost expected, but here second marriages (which are legal) are seen as a way of legitimising such arrangements.

Payment of a ‘bride price’ (dowry) is essential almost always. For a few, this is now really only a traditional nicety (I guess like a Western father walking his daughter down the aisle) but for most it reflects a deeply engrained belief that the man is literally purchasing a wife and taking her from her own family to become part of his. Women here therefore say it is best to minimise contact with your own family after marriage because it is seen as being disrespectful to your new parents in-law. This transactional scenario creates a situation where a husband feels entitled to demand anything he wants from his new purchase, and the wife is entirely cut off from any sort of social support should she feel inclined to seek assistance or flee.

Uganda created legislation to criminalise domestic violence in 2010 but high levels of poverty, negative cultural practices, limited access to resources and institutional weaknesses in law enforcement agencies continue to affect women’s rights. Police officers in rural areas would likely not know of the legislation or might even lack paper to register cases if a woman were brave enough to venture into the police station to report an incident. Then there is often just a lack of interest in doing things differently. Most Ugandan men – particularly in rural areas – believe it is a man’s right to discipline his wife… and many women believe that their husband pushing them around is a sign that he truly loves them. These cultural norms are a central feature of Ugandan society and therefore very difficult to shift.

The good news is that there is a relatively vibrant women’s movement in Uganda that is continuing to press for change. ACFODE – the organisation I have been based in here in Kampala – was created in 1985 as the first organised forum to facilitate effective debate and action on issues related to the advancement of women in Uganda. Supported by a range of international donor funding streams, many more have since been created to lobby on key issues and run projects to raise awareness or offer practical support. Following a programme of affirmative action, 100 of the 332 MPs in Uganda’s Parliament are women – though only six of these have made it into the cabinet of 28.[5]

Honestly though, as a Western woman who has lived here for 7 months, it feels as if there is still a mountain to climb. A Marriage and Divorce Bill that was created to guarantee Ugandan women equality in marriage has been frustrated in Parliament again and again because it runs contrary to the existence of various customary and religious practices. Though awareness around GBV and gender equality seems to be spreading slowly, attitudes held by husbands (and wives), young men (and young women), police officers (meant to enforce) and teachers (meant to enlighten) are still fundamentally skewed.

I know change as big as this takes time but it makes me angry to read reports from GBV workshops run by ACFODE where male attendees cite men being denied conjugal rights in marriage as an example of GBV (!), and sad to hear my outgoing, well-educated Ugandan girl friends say they wouldn’t want to be a second wife but they’d rather that than be cheated on forever anyway. It makes me feel thankful for having been born in an environment where gender equality is (generally) a given for me – and then a bit guilty for feeling thankful… and pondersome for Uganda – I hope Uganda’s girls find themselves in a situation like mine (or better!) in three generations time but can’t help but feel there is a great, great distance left to travel.

[1] ACFODE (February 2012), Exploring access to justice through traditional mechanisms and the formal justice system for women who experience violence in Uganda

[2] http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/633164-most-men-in-east-beat-women.html

[3] ACFODE (July 2012), Citizen’s Response in Promoting Violence Free Families – Policy Briefing Paper (DRAFT)

[4] http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/violence-against-women-girls/strategic-vision/

[5] UWONET (September 2010), CSO Alternative Report on Uganda’s implementation of CEDAW

Rebecca Murray: British VSO volunteer

Policy Analyst and M&E Advisor for the ‘Nurturing Young Trees to Make a Thick Forest’ project

ACFODE, ACCORD & APPCAN