As the world marks the end of the 16-days of Activism campaign against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), women activists and other human rights defenders met in Kampala where they brainstormed on possible ways to support victims of violence as well as bringing to an end these in human practices.
This year’s campaign was celebrated under the theme, “UNiTE! Activism to End Violence against Women & Girls.”
Uganda adopted the global theme which resonates with the urgency for collective action by all to bring an end to Violence Against Women and Girls, these started on 25th November 2022 and ended on 10th December 2022.
Hon Flavia Kabahenda Rwabuhuro, the Chairperson of Parliamentary Committee for Gender, Labour and social Development, noted that however much there is a need of empowering of the girl child, the boy child must not be left behind if the program is to succeed.
“We need balanced parenting by making sure that we have boys at same level with girls in terms of understanding or else we shall have women who are over empowered and in the end we may lack good husbands to marry them,” Kabahenda said.
She applauded the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development for having come up with parental guidelines for the moral upbringing of both genders.
“It’s not good to have a boy child on remand for so long because these may come out any time and end up marrying and destroying the girls you have raised very well. The boarding School syndrome is another problem in this country where by children are taken to school as early as 3 years, stay there up to University level… 25 years without receiving any guidance from anybody. They are not parented, they just eat, pass exams, no morals, no values and no identity or career guidance,” she said.
She urged government to copy from Rwanda and bring Primary Schools closer and affordable to the people so as to reduce on the number of pupils being taken to boarding schools at a tender age.
Rita Aciro, the Executive Director of Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET) noted that the largest number of victims for Gender Based Violence in the country are women and girls.
“The 2021 National Survey on Violence Against Women conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) indicated that 95% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence or both by partners or non- partners since the age of 15 years. 2020 UBOS survey found that 56% of partnered women have experienced intimate partner violence of a sexual or physical nature or both, 76% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence by a non-partner, 22% of these perpetrators being family members, and 86% of women have experienced violence at the workplace,” Aciro said.
She added that 34 percent of women 20-24 years were married or in union before age 18 and 7 percent were married before the age of 15.
The women revealed that although there is an increase in cases of violence against women in the country, they are still facing several challenges which have delayed their elimination like persistent negative social norms and attitudes towards women’s rights, limited awareness on the law among the practicing communities and difficulty in collecting evidence to support prosecution.
“Structural and systemic barriers to access to justice related to limited knowledge of the law and navigating justice pathways, financial limitations, limited human resource, and the effects of poverty on the population,” Aciro said.
They recommended that in order to reduce the number of such cases from increasing, the Parliament of Uganda should fast track the gender bills that were recently returned to the 11th Parliament, including the Sexual Offences Bill, 2019.
They also asked the Justice, Law and Order Sector to prioritize Violence against Women cases that are reported especially as exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and expedite the investigation and prosecution of these cases.
