By Evelyn Kiapi and Wangari Maathai
KAMPALA, Jun 10 2010 (IPS)

As the first Review Conference of the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court takes stock of the ICC’s achievements and considers amendments to strengthen the pursuit of justice around the world, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize is one of its strongest defenders.

Wangari Maathai: 'Africa needs to learn to deal with issues honestly and fairly.' Credit: Martin Rowe/Wikicommons

The founder of The Green Belt Movement, which works to curtail the devastating effects of deforestation and desertification, spoke to IPS in Kampala, Uganda, calling the ICC the only hope for many who have been denied justice in Africa and around the world.

Q: Why are you participating in this ICC landmark conference? A: I came to express my support for the ICC, especially in light of the statements that have been made that the ICC is not good for Africa and should not be supported by Africans because it is targeting this continent.

I know that the majority of ordinary Africans support the ICC because they are victims of conflict. Those who may not support the ICC are the leaders who are the perpetrators of violence against humanity.

Secondly, in these conflicts, women have been used and punished. They are the ones displaced to refugee camps and who lose their husbands and children.

But by far, the greatest crime against them is that rape is used as a weapon of war. We want rape to be punishable and those who commit this kind of crime held accountable.

Q: Why is the ICC being accused of focusing and targeting only Africa? A: That’s an excuse for Africa. The mandate of the ICC is to target people who commit crimes against humanity and to come in where national mechanisms fail to punish perpetrators.

In Kenya, we failed to handle the situation; Sudan was referred by the Security Council for crimes in Darfur. Uganda, DR Congo and Sierra Leone invited the ICC because they could not do anything at the national level.

It is not that Africa is being targeted. Perhaps, this is a reflection that there are a lot of conflicts and gross violations of human rights in Africa and African countries are not able to deal with them at the national level.

What Africa needs to do is learn to deal with these issues honestly and fairly. True African leaders have nothing to fear from the ICC.

Q: What are your views on the ICC’s involvement in Kenya? A: The ICC came to Kenya because Kenyans failed to create a tribunal that can punish the perpetrators. It is true that the ICC will only be able to punish the few; the most responsible.

But there will be thousands who were involved in killing, robbing and displacement of people that will have to be tried by some form of tribunal in Kenya. So in some ways we are complementing and in others, cooperating with the ICC.

Q: The ICC has often been criticized as being a ‘toothless dog’ and some victims say it has let them down? A: It’s very important to educate our people in Africa that the ICC is not a panacea and it will not solve all our problems. The ICC is a great idea and it has succeeded in creating a bridge that was non-existent; a bridge that allows it to enter into a country and arrest citizens without interference from national governments. That’s a bridge that should give hope to victims of war.

Let us not imagine that it is an easy thing. But let us nurture the hope that the ICC brings because it is the only hope we have at the moment. When we arrest a few, those potential ones who would have wanted a war tomorrow will think twice.

Q: You hold the view that the ICC is strengthening national justice systems. What evidence is there to show that this is true? A: Kenya is a very good example. We will now have to domesticate some aspects of the ICC in order to punish the many thousands of people who committed crimes during the post election violence. That in many ways is helping us to improve our own system of justice.

By domesticating the Rome Statute, you raise the bar on what is tolerable even at the national level.

Q: Women want more visibility and representation in peace processes. Is there evidence to show that a greater voice for women in negotiating peace agreements can yield better results? A: From the women who were in the government – who were in the front line, either ministers or potential ministers, who should have come together to protect and save us from the [Kenya post election violence] catastrophe that we were facing – I did not see that. And therefore, I continue saying that given the power, women must demonstrate that they can manage it better than men.

Q: What is the link between conflict, women and the environment? A: When men fight for power, they are usually fighting to control resources. It’s very important for us to manage our resources in a responsible and accountable way.

If we don’t, there will be fewer resources and this will increase the possibility of conflict, especially as the population grows.

And whenever there is conflict, women will always be the major victims.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 15 2009 (IPS)

The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states.

Girls to the front: but girls' primary school enrolment still lags behind that of boys. Credit: Manoocher Deghati/IPS

Only citizens and their elected representatives – at the national level – can hold governments to account for the promises to reduce poverty made in 2000 at the UN General Assembly in New York.

The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and his predecessor Kofi Annan both repeatedly stated that the missing ingredient is political will.

As the annual Stand Up, Take Action campaign on the Millennium Development Goals kicks off around the world, Sylvia Mwichuli, deputy director of the U.N. Millennium Campaign (UNMC) in Africa spoke to IPS about the need to demand accountability in both North and South. Excerpts of the interview below.

IPS: What MDG has seen the most dramatic progress? SYLVIA MWICHULI: This is a general question which may hide the tremendous progress being made in individual countries. Different countries are scoring differently. Goals that may be met by one country may not be met by another and the reverse is also true.

Great strides are being made on gender empowerment. Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia are on course to realise this goal.

Ghana and most of the North African states are on course to meet all and even surpass some of the targets.

IPS: Where has there been the most dramatic failure? SM: There are challenges in meeting Goal Three, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and Goal Five, improving maternal health.

Girls’ primary education enrolment still lags behind that of boys and their dropout rates widen as they go up the ladder of education.

African women still die in great numbers while giving birth. In fact, an African woman’s risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and child birth is 1 in 22 compared to 1 in 7,300 in developed countries.

IPS: What are the major stumbling blocks towards the achievements of the MDGs? SM: The major stumbling block is failure of political will by both countries of the South and those of the North.

The developed countries – except a notable few – have not kept their end of the bargain on Goal 8 (develop a global partnership for development, including dealing with debt and creating a more open, and non-discriminatory trading and financial system).

With the exception of just 16 countries, Africa’s debts have not been cancelled as promised. The countries of the North have not eliminated trade barriers like tariffs on goods from Africa as promised.

And they haven’t increased overseas development assistance to the levels promised, while the quality of aid is still a source of concern.

Whereas African states dedicated themselves to creating favourable conditions in their countries, a look at their national action plans and budgetary allocations, shows a lack of commitment.

Many of them think of MDGs as yet another begging opportunity. MDGs aren’t about aid but (about) prioritisation and proper use of our own nationally-generated resources.

In fact, some countries do not need aid at all, they just need a caring, accountable and a democratic government. But all we see are local and international development funds draining into pockets of government officials, politicians, local and foreign private companies. This denies the poverty-stricken, the expectant mothers and the children an opportunity to have an education or to get medication.

Goals number 1 to 7 can only be achieved at the national and local levels and not from New York or London.

IPS: Besides MDG 3, many of the millennium goals are specifically tied to the situation of women. Goals on maternal health, on education, and ultimately on reducing poverty, which in Africa particularly has a woman’s face. How do government and civil society efforts to attain MDGs recognise the fact that reducing poverty is underpinned by women’s rights and empowerment? SM: Seventy per cent of world’s poor are women and children. The economic crisis that started in 2008 is expected to have the most devastating effects for women, who perform 66 percent of the world’s work but earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the world’s property.

It’s against this background that the MDGs 2, 3 and 5 (were designed). It is evident that eradicating poverty is a function of ensuring women rights, ensuring girls attain education and also that women occupy key decision making positions to influence policy.

Governments recognise that poverty has a female face but what is lacking is the political will.

IPS: What is Piga Debe? What successes have been achieved with Piga Debe for women’s rights? SM: Piga Debe is a Swahili word for making a loud noise. This is a campaign started to fast track MDGs 3 and 5 that relate to women’s health, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

These are the goals that face the most risk of not being met by 2015 even by countries like South Africa, Uganda, Ghana and Rwanda that have made real progress on MDG 3.

IPS: How has the framework of attaining MDGs helped strengthen development in East Africa? SM: Greater focus on universal primary education, poverty and women’s empowerment and gender equality.

For example Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have greatly increased budgetary allotment to the education sector, to 20 percent which is way above the global target.

We are also seeing more national funds being devolved, like the Community Development Fund in Kenya. Forty-eight percent of seats in the Rwandan parliament are women.

All this has been as a result campaign initiatives like MDG Parliamentary caucuses set up in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

(Read the full interview here)

Excerpt:

Activists have spent decades trying to get new laws passed to secure the rights of Ugandan women in the private sphere. As a fresh set of gender-related laws comes before parliament, activists are this time seeking to enlist male legislators as partners in advocating their passage.

Parliament is presently considering legislation on marriage and divorce, domestic violence and female genital mutilation. The Uganda Women Parliamentarians Association (UWOPA) recently held a two-day workshop aimed at bringing as many of the country’s 230 male legislators as possible on board.

The focus of the discussion at the seminar, held in Entebbe, on the shores of Lake Victoria just east of the capital Kampala, was the draft Marriage and Divorce Bill, which in its draft form guarantees partners fair access to matrimonial wealth during and after a marriage. It would also recognise the crime of marital rape, acknowledging a partner’s right to choose when to have sex.

Fixed minds

The seminar, began on a resistant note with male parliamentarians challenging clauses of the Bill. For instance, while the constitution provides that women and men are equal in marriage and dissolution of marriage, men argued that culture demands otherwise.

Some MPs even defended the practice of wife beating, describing it as not only acceptable but as a gesture of love.

“In my culture if a husband spends a while without beating you, then you better think twice because wife beating is a sign of love,” Odongo Otto said.

Barnabas Tinkasimire was not happy with the clause on equal distribution of wealth and maintenance costs upon divorce, which would require the support of an unemployed spouse who has custody of a child.

“It is not realistic to keep on supporting a wife you have divorced especially after she has taken half of your property already just because of maintenance costs for children,” the legislator said.

MP Pius Mujuzi warned that the Bill needed careful thought and revision before it could be passed, for it could make things worse. His argument is that if men are frustrated by the new law – by being forced to pay alimony or giving up assets upon divorce – it could lead to increased violence against women.

“In some regions, women murder their husbands because of the unjust marriage laws and property laws. They become desperate. So in the same way, if you make laws that suppress men, the same thing could happen. It might cause violence,” Mujuzi said.

Domestic violence takes place in a context of women’s dependency on men, therefore economic empowerment is important. What steps are being taken to sensitise and empower women, asked MP Elijah Muhindo Kyetunde.


Hope

Kyetunde’s comment was indication of a shift in tone. The resistance of the morning session turned into a vibrant and accepting afternoon. Making a case for male involvement in promoting gender equality in Uganda, Member of Parliament Dr Chris Baryomunsi took his colleagues through the challenges that women face due to their gender.

Baryomunsi, a renowned women’s rights activist argued that the low status of women in society, discrimination against women and poor health and nutrition status affect women’s rights.

He emphasised the importance of male involvement at household level in securing expanded rights for women, improved family health, better communication between partners and joint and informed decision making within households.

Baryomunsi says while there are many male MPs that support women’s empowerment, most programmes lack clarity as to how male involvement should be promoted. He argues that women sometimes undermine and defeat their own cause by leaving men out of gender and development programmes.

“That is one of the reasons the Domestic Relations Bill failed in the Seventh Parliament,” he said.

He said the use of female lawyers to present the Bills to the workshop that morning also negatively impacted on the men’s response to the cause.

“Why didn’t the Uganda Law Reform Commission use its male lawyers to present the proposed Bill to the male Members of Parliament? When you use the women of the Law Reform Commission, well, it’s like as if it is their (the women’s) own views. But if it were the men presenting these Bills, probably the message would be delivered differently and the acceptability different.

“Men’s needs have to be understood holistically… Packaging of information in reference to male partners is important,” Baryomunsi says.

There was consensus among men present that they wanted to be involved as partners in gender issues but only if the women involved them.  
”If these women activists could find a way of convincing Dr Baryomunsi to market this Bill for them, I can assure you very many men will come on board. The way we package our messages matters a lot,” Oyet said.

Says legislator Beatrice Lagada: “Once the men realise that it is important to become partners with women, then I will request those who have become partners to design programmes for other men. We need to take this debate outside the hotel and into the public arena.”

MP Betty Kamya also urged that broader action be taken, emphasising that women with an education can be more assertive against violence and better able to avoid or leave abusive situations to live on their own.

“We should put a lot of emphasis on broadening options for women. The reason that women are trapped is because they do not have options. If a girl child gets a good education, she can stand up against violence. Instead of dealing with catastrophes, we should deal with prevention.”

Kamya also emphasised the importance of instilling values in sons at a young age so as to sensitise them about women’s rights.

“We need to begin with the way we raise our children. We should raise our boys to respect women. This should be done in the main school curriculum. The way women choose to bring up their sons is the way these sons will behave when they are adults,” Kamya said.

By the end of the workshop, there were signs that UWOPA’s initiative of bringing the male legislators on board was one positive stride ahead towards securing the rights of women through gender-related legislation.

The Bill faces a stiff challenge however. Uganda’s Catholic Church has made vocal public statements against it, arguing that the Bill degrades the role of religion in marriage and encourages divorce.

“The law takes precedence over the commitment of the two married people, (instead giving it) to other things like material wealth and property,” says Fr Lawrence Kanyike of St Augustine’s Chapel, Makerere University.

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Jan 25 2007 (IPS)

At the age of 63, Mama Dorothea Aduk should have been enjoying retirement, and a comfortable life in her village in northern Uganda.

But a long running conflict between rebels of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), led by former catholic catechist Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan government, turned her into a refugee living in the Acholi Quarters, a suburb of shacks in the east of country’s capital city, Kampala 10 years ago.

Instead of spending time with her grandchildren, telling them the heroic tales of their ancestors, the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda, Mama Aduk slaves in a quarry, breaking stones to earn as little as a dollar a day for dangerous and backbreaking labour.

Hopes of returning to her old home, and the graves of some relatives killed by the rebels, which revived last year with the ceasefire and possible peace agreement between the rebels and the government have faded with the negotiations deadlocked.

Talks, which started in July 2006, in Juba, capital of southern Sudan, did not resume on Jan. 22 as expected. On Jan. 10, the LRA announced it was staying away from the negotiations unless it was moved to a neutral country like Kenya or South Africa, which demand Kampala has rejected.

The rebels said their decision followed recent comments by Sudan’s President Omar El Bashir and his South Sudan counterpart, Salva Kiir Mayardit that the LRA were no longer welcome in southern Sudan. The rebels also complained that the mediator, Riek Macher, the vice president of South Sudan, is biased in favour of Kampala.

The LRA, which wants to establish a government run according to the Biblical 10 commandments, has been seeking to topple the government of President Yoweri Museveni since 1986, a conflict that, according to government statistics, has displaced over 16,000 people from their homes. Some 20,000 children have been abducted to serve as child soldiers, and sex slaves, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF.

Political analysts here think the LRA’s attempt to shift the venue was intended to raise the profile of the peace process and their stake in it. They also believe that the talks have been hampered by the outstanding arrest warrant against top rebel commanders issued in 2005 by the International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague.

This came after the Ugandan government asked the ICC in 2003 to collect evidence of crimes committed against humanity by the LRA leadership.

“The future of the talks depends on whether the LRA can be convinced that Juba is still a venue where its main concerns, particularly the ICC warrants can be addressed,” Angelo Izama, a political commentator in Kampala said.

Meanwhile, reports of rebel attacks on travellers have resumed after months of calm in the north. There are also reports that the rebels have started crossing back into Uganda, thus breaching the cessation of hostilities agreement signed on Aug. 26, 2006.

The Ugandan army has said it is ready to defend its citizens by military means. Army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said the army was on high alert to defend the country’s borders from rebel intrusion.

“We are ready. No more LRA rebels will be accepted back in northern Uganda,” he said. The rebels, it is believed, are currently based in unknown positions in southern Sudan.

Thousands of people live in harsh conditions in camps for the internally displaced in northern Uganda. The government launched a ‘Master Plan for Northern Uganda’ in April last year aimed at disbanding the camps and resettling refugees back in their villages, but many Acholis are scared to leave in the absence of a durable peace.

This is not the first time that talks have taken place. Since 1986, when the conflict started, there have been over six attempts to reach peace.

Refugees in the Acholi quarter believe that the only path to peace would be for the LRA to atone for their sins through traditional ways like ‘Mato Oput’, which involves the slaughter of animals and other rituals to enable enemies to be forgiven for their misdeeds.

“Kony and his commanders know they committed atrocities and killed many innocent people. They need to come out and apologise and the people will pardon them. The ICC may not forgive Kony but the Acholi people will,” said Mama Aduk’s son Thomas Akena, 34.

“The talks are taking too long and that is why hope is dying. We hear stories over the radio that the two parties are having disagreements and we feel as if the whole thing is collapsing,” Akena said.

But International Affairs Minister Okello Oryem, a senior member of the government’s negotiation team, said there was no reason for people to lose hope. Abandoning the talks at this juncture would open the door to a resumption of attacks by the LRA, he warned.

“The chances of achieving peace are very high. There are hurdles here and there but we are getting there,” Oryem told IPS.

“I am patient, tolerant and foremost, hopeful. Others should also be so. We cannot achieve peace overnight,” he added. “I am hopeful that at least by April this year, a peace agreement will have been signed.”

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Nov 14 2006 (IPS)

In 2003, Corporal James Omedio and Private Abdullah Muhammad stood before a public firing squad for killing Irish Catholic priest Declan O’Toole, his driver Patrick Longoli, and his cook Fidel Longole.

They were executed after they were found guilty by a field court martial, following a trial that lasted two hours and 36 minutes. The hasty execution occurred without access to a fair and independent trial, or a chance to appeal the decision. At the time it generated criticism from the public, rights groups and the international community.

But a report released this year shows that nothing has changed in the last three years – the Uganda army continues to execute any soldier who violates the rights of civilians, and it uses summary executions as a way to clean up its human rights record. The army says that the drastic measures are necessary to curb excessive abuses within its ranks.

“The Progressive Report on Action Taken Against Human Rights Violations by Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) in Northern Uganda 2003-2005,” written by the Ministry of Defence, reported that the army executed 26 soldiers in the region over the last three years.

The executions were carried out either by firing squad or by hanging in the conflict-torn region of northern Uganda, where government troops and rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), headed by self-styled leader Joseph Kony, have been at war since 1986.

Approximately 20,000 soldiers currently are stationed there to protect the citizens who were forced into camps from rebel attacks.

State Minister for Defence Ruth Nankabirwa said the Ugandan army will continue to execute soldiers who violate the rights of other citizens, because that is the law.

“Soldiers who violate the rights of other citizens should be put away,” Nankabirwa told IPS in an interview. “But this (execution) happens once in a blue moon,” she added.

The report indicated that 11 soldiers were executed in 2003, seven were executed in 2004, and another eight in 2005.

No known executions have occurred this year. Yet, a second report, released by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), a Kampala-based human rights organisation, says “several” death sentences were handed down by military tribunals and a few by civilian courts during the first half of 2006.

That report, “Deprivation of the right to life, liberty and security of persons in Uganda, January 2006-June 2006”, released in early November, recommends a review of the military procedures in a bid to streamline the powers of the military tribunals versus those of civilian courts.

The FHRI report also expressed concern that the country’s penal code does not cover military service offenders, and that military procedures are separate from the criminal justice system.

“It is this separation that is partly responsible for human rights abuses, most significantly, the circumvention of the appeals process,” the FHRI report said.

The defence minister, however, is unapologetic. Executing undisciplined soldiers sets an example to deter other soldiers from violating the rights of citizens, Nankabirwa said. “This has maintained the highest standards of discipline in the army,” she said.

The UPDF Act 2005 provides for the regulation of the army in accordance with the 1995 constitution. The act’s “code of conduct” section outlines the purpose of guidance and instilling discipline within the army. Death is the most severe punishment imposed under this law.

Soldiers are tried either by the general court martial, division court martial, field court martial or unit disciplinary committees. The act also includes provisions for appeals under the court martial appeal court. These courts have unlimited jurisdiction to try all persons subject to military law.

Although the constitutional court has held that military courts are subordinate to all civilian courts, the latter consider themselves independent of the former unless the law is changed.

Therefore, soldiers can only appeal to a military court and not civilian courts if they have been convicted by a military court in the first place.

“Through this, the army’s human rights record has progressed to great levels… In the UPDF, these courts have gone a long way to assist the institution in improving and streamlining our human rights record,” the military report stated.

The UPDF, a formation of the National Resistance Army (NRA) a guerrilla movement founded by President Yoweri Museveni in the 1980s has indeed earned itself a reputation of discipline and professionalism to a greater extent in comparison to armies in past regimes.

Since independence, armies were associated with cruelty, torture, murder and other human rights violations. The soldiers carried guns and roamed the city streets, robbing, killing and raping terrified citizens.

“Honestly, I think the disciplinary measures within the army have made the UPDF a clean force in comparison to any we have had before. I remember that when we were younger, the sight of a soldier would scare you because you thought he would harm you,” Henry Nsubuga, an employee at a Kampala bank, told IPS.

“This army (UPDF) is different. They are even friendly, unlike the past ones. These soldiers carry guns and thus hold a lot of power. The temptation to use the weapon can be very high. There is thus need to control them,” Nsubuga added.

Army spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye told IPS the UPDF will continue to use the death penalty because of its history and as a deterrent against reverting to the human rights abuses of the past.

“The history of the military in our country is not very friendly. The military was the greatest violator of human rights and the army was anti-law itself,” he said.

“It is based on that history to put harsh and stringent conditions as far as discipline is concerned in the military, to avoid a repeat of the past.”

This, Kulayigye said, is “to ensure and immunise the institution against the past mistakes of the previous army. And it is no wonder that the UPDF, I believe, is still the most disciplined force in the history of this country.”

Yet while civilian prisoners in Uganda can appeal their sentences, army prisoners cannot. In June 2005, Uganda’s constitutional court struck down the imposition of mandatory death sentences in civilian cases but rejected an appeal by over 400 death-row inmates to completely outlaw capital punishment.

Although capital punishment continues in Uganda, even the defence minister concedes the movement to abolish it is strong.

“We are listening to the debate. If Uganda decides that we should do away with the death penalty all together, then we shall amend the law accordingly,” Nankabirwa said.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Sep 13 2006 (IPS)

In 1999, an HIV-infected 30-year-old man named Fred Mwanga shocked the country when he raped a three-month-old baby in a Kampala suburb.

Even more upsetting, Mwanga’s action was not an isolated incident. The rate of HIV-infected adults sexually abusing the nation’s most vulnerable citizens is rising. As these ill men prey on the minors, they spread the deadly HIV virus. Already one in 10 Ugandans is HIV-positive or has full-blown AIDS.

Now, however, the Ugandan government is drafting a bill to execute offenders who knowingly infect minors with HIV.

If passed, any HIV-infected person who performs a sexual act with another person who is below the age of 18 years commits a felony called ‘aggravated defilement’ and, if convicted by the high court, will be executed, Elioda Tumwesigye, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS said in August. Defilement refers to the act of sex with a child 18 years or younger, with or without consent.

People like Mwanga could face death if Parliament passes this legislation.

Human rights groups in Uganda believe the bill is off target. Instead of putting unnecessary emphasis on death sentences, more effort should go to fighting HIV/AIDS and in AIDS awareness campaigns, they say.

In addition, more state investment should be given to the police and investigating agencies to ensure crime prevention and child protection, Livingstone Sewanyana, executive director, of the Kampala-based non-governmental organisation, Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, told IPS.

“When you subscribe to the death penalty, you give an unacceptable excuse to the state to forfeit or forget its cardinal function of maintaining law and order,” Sewanyana said.

When a person sexually abuses a minor, that in itself amounts a failure of the state to prevent it, he argues. “For a state whose duty is to protect, to put emphasis on executing citizens, I think that would be abdicating its responsibility.”

This bill is one of many the Parliament will be discussing in its attempt to cope with the widening HIV/AIDS epidemic. Previous bills have been drafted and shelved for years. This parliamentary session, however, Tumwesigye said he is confident action will be taken because the problems are spiralling out of control.

Early last month, the chairman of the Uganda Law Reform Commission, Joseph Kakooza presented a brief on the draft HIV bill, which outlines in part the government’s alarm over the rise of sexual abuse of minors.

“There is a big concern about people who infect others with HIV. In some countries, if an HIV positive person knowingly infects another, he or she is charged. In some countries, such people are referred to as murderers,” Kakooza told members of Parliament at an August hearing.

Uganda’s bill specifically targets those who infect children with HIV through sexually abuse.

Sexual abuse in Uganda is on the rise, according to a report by the Kampala-based child protection organisation, The African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN), Uganda Chapter.

A study released last year showed that 82.9 percent of the 16,800 abuse cases reported for three months in 2004 were sexual. This was an increase from previous a report which showed that 4,495 minors were sexually abused in 2002. Girls were the major victims of abuse, accounting for 85.8 percent of the cases reported, the document said.

Already in Uganda, defendants can be put to death if found guilty of rape and defilement, but judges have the discretion to give a convict a lesser sentence. So far, no one has been sentenced to death for this particular crime.

In addition to discussing whether death should be a mandatory penalty, parliamentarians also will debate whether a person who rapes a toddler should be given the same punishment as one who defiles a teenager. Thus, the problem for the government is how to define the age of consent. They have asked for the age of consent to be reduced from 18 to 16.

Others disagree, however. Many university girls have fallen victim to HIV-infected men, known locally as “Sugar Daddies”, who will give the girls material things in exchange for sex. There are some campaigns now to try to stop this “cross-generational” sex.

Human rights groups worry that a mandatory death penalty for sex offenders will drive the problem underground. That is because the ANPPCAN report also stated that 90 percent of the alleged perpetrators were close relatives. That is where prosecution of criminals runs into a problem.

Many parents preferred to resolve abuse cases out of court because they do not want to see their relatives being dragged to prison for life, or worse still, hanged.

According to the report, sexual abuse cases reported to the police and in the media were far higher than the number of cases settled by the courts. This implies, the ANPPCAN report said, that reported cases do not go through the penal system and instead are privately. Out of court settlements are common in Uganda, with compensations in the form of money, livestock and “maintenance” packages if a girl gets pregnant.

“Child sexual abuse is a major problem that calls for intensified advocacy against this problem,” the report concluded.

There have been several debates on capital punishment, especially during the constitution-drafting process that ended in 1995. However, the majority of the Constituent Assembly delegates voted to retain the death penalty amidst opposition from various rights groups.

Uganda has executed some 377 people, including one woman, since 1938, according to records from the Uganda Prisons Department. President Yoweri Museveni’s government has put 51 people to death since it took over power in 1986.

Currently, some 555 prisoners, 27 of whom are women, sit on Uganda’s death row, according to Uganda Prisons Department.

Rights group believe the death penalty is a violation of human rights and a right to life. It not only denies the judicial system an opportunity to correct mistakes, but also denies the victim all possibility of rehabilitation.

“We generally are convinced that the death penalty is not a punishment. After all, everybody will (one day) die. It (death penalty) does not provide an opportunity for reform. The idea behind punishment is to enable a person to reform and for society to change its ways,” Sewanyana said.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, May 15 2006 (IPS)

Tens of thousands of Ugandan schoolchildren have enrolled in ‘True Love Waits’ clubs that promote sexual abstinence as the way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Each student member has pledged “commitment to God, myself, my family, my country, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually pure until the day I give myself only to my marriage partner in a convenient marriage relationship.”

The clubs, at schools in and around the Ugandan capital, Kampala, were launched by Family Life Network: a local faith-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that seeks to “raise the moral fibre of Ugandan society through the family”. Those who take the vow are issued “abstinence commitment cards”.

Executive director Stephen Langa says an estimated 13,000 secondary schoolchildren (aged 13-20) have signed up in Kampala alone in one year.

Uganda was among the world’s HIV/AIDS hot spots in the 1980s and ’90s. But it scripted a remarkable turnaround with a strategy called ABC – or abstinence, be faithful or use a condom.

From over 20 percent at the start of the ’90s, HIV prevalence has dropped to five percent today, which according to experts was the result of the government’s bold support for a safe sex policy that promoted condom use.

However, the condom social marketing strategy changed dramatically last year – emphasising sexual abstinence, with condom use messages being directed at high-risk groups.

“As a feminist, I strongly think the abstinence programme doesn’t take into consideration the reality in the country, which is that women’s sexuality is controlled by men,” said Salome Nakaweesi Kimbugwe, coordinator of the Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET).

“How will a woman abstain if she doesn’t even control her body? (If) she doesn’t decide when, where, how and with whom to have sex?” she asked.

“Women in Uganda have not yet been empowered to make decisions concerning their sexuality – to be able to deny sex…Women here aren’t allowed to talk about sex,” Kimbugwe added, in an interview with IPS.

Cultural practices also reinforce patriarchy.

In central and eastern Uganda, it is mandatory that sengas (maternal aunts who teach teenagers sexual techniques) train girls as young as 13 to remain submissive at all times.

Women who were interviewed by IPS expressed their helplessness.

“Abstain from sex?” asked a surprised Ida Nakabugo, a 23-year-old resident of Mengo, one of the suburbs in Kampala. “How can I do that? My husband would beat me up and chase me out of the house.”

Also a mother of three, she was of the firm belief that “all men cheat” in marriage, and expose their wives to the HI-virus.

“But what can you do? He is your husband. Those (HIV infections) are some of the risks we take in marriage. My greatest worry is for my children,” she lamented.

Adams Ochaya, a third year student at Makerere University observed: “You cannot talk about abstinence when poverty is still around. People are poor, and a woman might not say no to sex if she thinks she can get something out of it.”

Ochaya was referring to the phenomenon of “sugar daddies” that is relatively common in Uganda, where a young woman willingly has a long-term sexual relationship with an older man who gives her money and material goods in exchange.

Gender equity and women’s empowerment is goal number three of the Millennium Development Goals. According to the latest UNDP ‘Country Progress Report on MDGs’ (2003), women are disadvantaged by domestic chores, early marriage and pregnancy.

Poverty, culture and religion dictate that Ugandan parents still marry off children before they turn 18.

“I think we should be providing women and girls more choice to make decisions that concern them. Unfortunately, abstinence doesn’t enable women and girls to make decisions,” says UWONET’s Kimbugwe.

Last year, activists urged the government to enact the long pending Domestic Relations Bill (DRB) and the Sexual Offences Bill. The first addresses polygamy, bride price, cohabitation, marital rape, and female genital mutilation.

In June 2005, the New York-based Human Rights Watch also urged the Ugandan parliament to debate the DRB. Its provision on “marital rape in particular, is exactly the type of reform that anyone who cares about stopping HIV/AIDS and promoting women’s rights should support,” the report stated.

“Having languished in parliament for more than a decade, it is time for action on the DRB.”

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Feb 27 2006 (IPS)

Opposition supporters have rejected Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s victory in general elections held last Thursday – the first multi-party poll to take place in the country in over 20 years.

Figures from the electoral commission showed the head of state as having won 59 percent of ballots cast to determine the new president – against the 37 percent garnered by his main rival, Kizza Besigye. Other candidates included Miria Obote, wife of former head of state Milton Obote, who stood on a Uganda People’s Congress ticket, and John Ssebana Kizito – the Democratic Party representative.

The results ran contrary to opinion polls, which had suggested a tight contest between Museveni and Besigye.

However, the president and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) performed poorly in certain regions, notably northern and eastern Uganda, where political instability, poverty, under-development and disease are at their most acute.

“The voting pattern in the parliamentary elections in the north and east was mainly a statement of anger against Museveni’s government. In most cases it had nothing to do with the performance of (a) particular MP (member of parliament),” says political commentator Emmy Allio.

Government has been at war with the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda since 1986. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, over 20,000 children have been killed by the LRA, or abducted to serve as soldiers and sex slaves in the movement. The rebel group claims to be fighting for a society based on the Biblical 10 commandments.

Figures released by the World Health Organisation last year showed that at least 1,000 people were dying each week in camps for more than 20,000 persons displaced by rebel activity – this as a result of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other illnesses.

While Museveni is credited with having turned the tide against AIDS in Uganda, HIV prevalence in the north is double the national average of six percent, according to health ministry figures.

The head of state also found himself without support in the capital.

Kampala voted for Besigye, who has dismissed the overall outcome of the poll, saying events before the election undermined his bid for the presidency. Various criminal charges were brought against the opposition leader in 2005 that related to treason, terrorism and rape, prompting his arrest. Besigye was only released on bail after campaigning for last week’s vote had got underway.

International observers said the election itself was largely free and fair, although the opposition has alleged irregularities at the polls. Besigye now reportedly plans to challenge the election results in court.

Museveni has also been applauded for introducing universal primary education during his 20-year rule, as well as for putting Uganda’s economy on an even keel and being generally tolerant of a free press.

However, James Tumusiime, editor of the ‘Weekly Observer’ newspaper, says the outcome of last week’s vote should give the president pause for thought.

“It’s quite clear that although the president and his party have won, they still have a lot of ground to cover. They have lost a lot of ground in northern and eastern Uganda as well as in the central region, which was not the case years ago,” he noted.

“If they don’t put things right, then in five years time it is possible that they could slide to 49 per cent and that would not be enough for them to sail through.”

For a candidate to win presidential polls in Uganda, he or she must gain at least 51 percent of the vote – failing which a second round of elections takes place.

Presidential press secretary Onapito Ekilomoit acknowledged declining support for the NRM in eastern Uganda – but added that demands for improved services in this region would be met.

“People are asking for social services and we are working on that. As for the people in the north, we have to convince them that their lives are improving,” he said.

Tumusiime sees the Forum for Democratic Change, headed by Besigye, as a party of great promise – despite the fact that its candidate lost.

“(The) party is hardly a year old. For a party that young to have put up such a fight and taken the battle right to the door of the NRM, which has been around for 20 years, is something remarkable,” he noted. “In five years time they will be a force to reckon with.”

Almost 70 percent of Uganda’s 10.4 million registered voters were estimated to have turned out for the poll.

Uganda’s constitution was altered last year to allow Museveni to stand for a third term; this prompted a cut in aid from donors disgruntled by the president’s efforts to remain in power.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Feb 21 2006 (IPS)

Ugandans will go to the polls Thursday for their first multi-party elections in about 25 years, this after a campaign marred by violence.

Five candidates are vying for the presidency, while close on 1,000 are contesting parliamentary seats in 214 constituencies and 69 districts (the district seats may only be filled by women candidates). Additional seats in the legislature are reserved for particular groups, including the disabled.

Miria Obote, wife of former head of state Milton Obote, is standing for president on behalf of the Uganda People’s Congress. John Ssebana Kizito is representing the Democratic Party, while Abed Bwanika is in the race as an independent.

Current head of state Yoweri Museveni (candidate for the National Resistance Movement, NRM) and Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) are considered the front runners, however.

Opinion polls published by the ‘Daily Monitor’ and ‘Weekly Observer’ newspapers last week show that while Museveni has the edge over his main rival, neither he nor Besigye would win 51 percent of the vote at present. Failing this, a second round of voting will have to take place.

In the event that Besigye does upset expectations with a first-round victory, there are fears that the army might not support him.

The Uganda People’s Defence Forces have been accused of provoking campaign-related violence in several instances. Last week, a soldier dressed in civilian clothes fired on a crowd of Besigye supporters in Mengo township, in the vicinity of the capital – Kampala. Three people died in the incident, while the soldier claimed that the crowd was angry and that he had fired in self-defence.

Witnesses said the soldier first attempted to drive though the crowd in a car decorated with Museveni campaign posters.

The incident came a day after the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report claiming that this week’s poll was not likely to be free and fair, as government had harassed the opposition.

“The ruling party under President Yoweri Museveni is playing a dirty game of intimidating the electorate and undermining the opposition,” noted the document, titled ‘In Hope and Fear: Uganda’s Presidential and Parliamentary Polls’.

Four days later, seven armoured trucks filled with soldiers drove into a group of Besigye supporters in the eastern town of Mukono, causing a stampede that injured several people – two critically. The crowd had been waiting for Besigye to arrive from a rally in an adjacent town.

NRM head of security James Kinobe claims the FDC candidate’s followers have made a habit of holding rallies next to roads, so blocking traffic.

FDC officials believe these instances of violence go beyond harassment, and are part of a campaign to assassinate Besigye.

“Our candidate was within 100 meters of the shooting (in Mengo). We take it as the first attempt on his life,” the party’s international envoy, Sam Akaki, told journalists Monday.

Besigye, once Museveni’s doctor, is standing for the presidency against his former patient and guerilla bush war comrade for the second time.

In 2001, he campaigned on the Reform Agenda ticket and lost, subsequently going into self-imposed exile in South Africa. His departure came after officials had detained and questioned him over alleged links with a rebel group, an association Besigye has denied.

After his return towards the end of last year, Besigye faced a series of criminal charges for activities said to include treason, terrorism and rape. He was jailed, but later released on bail, weeks after the campaign had got underway.

Since then, Besigye has divided his time between court hearings and the campaign trail. Most recently, there have been calls for his candidature to be nullified on the grounds that his academic qualifications are suspect. According to the Human Rights Watch report, “…the opposition has its hands tied by politically motivated criminal charges against its leaders.”

Museveni took over power in 1986 after unseating Tito Okello, who had himself gained office through a military coup. Okello was preceded by Milton Obote, against whom the NRM waged a five-year guerilla bush war.

Multi-party politics were banned by Museveni after he took control of Uganda; however, citizens voted to reinstate the system last year, during a referendum.

The president amended the constitution in 2005 in a bid to gain a third term in office – a move that prompted several NRM members to throw their support behind Besigye’s FDC. Donors have also criticised Museveni’s attempts to remain in power, cutting funds to the East African country or withdrawing aid.

Recent events in Uganda have left many wondering whether the country is returning to the dark days of Obote and an earlier ruler, Idi Amin – both of whom presided over violence and rights abuses.

“We are being told to stock the house (with food), including fueling the car. I hope you are doing the same,” a Ugandan employee of an international non-governmental organisation told IPS.

Added Fred Kamuntu, a trader in Kampala, “Nobody knows what is going to happen. Things already don’t look good; business is slow.”

However, police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi says authorities will maintain law and order.

“We have intensified foot patrols and more vehicles for patrolling and responding to incidents. Also we have been reinforced by other security agencies to overcome the issue of shortage of manpower,” he told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 10 2005 (IPS)

The spread of the internet has opened Uganda to a vast array of trends and influences that would have had little effect in previous years. However, a good many citizens who have peered into this brave new world are not sure they like what they see – especially the two pornography sites featuring Ugandans that took the country by surprise recently.

The sites, including the unambiguously named ‘hotugandans.com’, came to public attention in July.

They displayed explicit pictures and videos, alongside contact addresses in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. According to various reports, the pages were hosted in Canada, and popular with Ugandans living abroad who used credit cards to pay for access to the material.

A public outcry has since led to the websites being blocked (in an ironic twist, visitors to ‘hotugandans.com’ are now directed to the site of Benny Hinn Ministries). But, the debate about the globalised society that enabled them to emerge rages on.

“When it comes to morality, globalisation is not a good thing because it is making us accept gay practices, pornography and reducing the age of consent for sex,” Stephen Langa, executive director of the Family Life Network, told IPS. This non-governmental organisation, located in the capital of Kampala, advocates traditional values through counselling and education.

Women featured on the site were apparently paid up to 1,000 dollars to be photographed and filmed – although one claimed that they did so on the understanding that this material would not appear in Uganda.

Official figures put the proportion of Ugandans living on less than a dollar a day at 38 percent. However, the notion that the women’s participation in the site was motivated by poverty is dismissed by Raymond Kyambadde, a pastor based in Kampala.

“According to the newspaper reports about the porn website, most of the featured were decent women who had decent jobs,” he said in an interview with IPS. “Some even have families and husbands. So it is not all about money, but Western influence on our society.”

Since government gave a tax holiday for the import of computers two years ago, hundreds of internet cafés have sprung up even in the most remote areas. In Kampala, a five-minute walk can take you past two or three such cafés.

Some forbid customers to open pornographic sites, and use monitoring devices in a bid to deter access. But, matters are complicated by the fact that Uganda still lacks a legal definition for pornography – let alone a law banning its consumption.

Two years ago, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Pornography proposed that the constitution should be amended to prohibit and eliminate pornography in Uganda. “One of the justifications we gave is that pornography is harmful to public health and order,” Sarah Kiyingi Kyama, chairwoman of the 12-member committee, told IPS.

“It not only violates the basic human rights of dignity of people – especially women – but it also leads to the spread of disease at a time when we are fighting against HIV/AIDS,” she added. Kiyingi also believes there is a link between pornography and sexual crimes.

However, the proposed amendments were not approved – and the committee’s attempts to enlist the media in the fight against pornography have also been unsuccessful.

“My take is that we cannot compromise on the question of press freedom, a fundamental human right, because some people are abusing it. It’s obvious that the press needs to be responsible and most journalists do take their responsibility seriously,” says James Tumusiime, editor of the ‘Weekly Observer’ – a newspaper in Kampala.

Uganda’s first tabloid – ‘Red Pepper’, launched in 2002 – also reflects the way in which global trends are making themselves felt in the country.

“We realised that much as tabloids were doing well elsewhere in…the UK, Netherlands and the United States, this was something that was not happening in Africa – especially in developing countries like Uganda,” says Arinaitwe Rugyendo, one of the founders of the paper, and its editor. “So we thought that if we came with a different kind of product from the mainstream journalism, we would be able to create a niche in the market.”

As with the pornographic sites, Red Pepper’s mix of nudity and scandal sparked outrage – and calls for anti-pornography legislation to be put in place.

“The criticism we received in the beginning was not justified. Certain people interpreted it as pornography, but it was not,” Rugyendo told IPS. “All we were doing was exposing what was previously deemed as non-African.”

While it may be Red Pepper’s images that are capturing public attention, the paper is also intent on revolutionizing the media in other ways.

“The mainstream media was ignoring certain aspects of society. It was delegating (front page news) towards politically-oriented material, and had this thinking that a good story is one that has taken place in parliament, at State House or a political rally,” notes Rugyendo.

But, “The new generation does not think politically,” he adds. “It has its own aspirations and the way they look at society these days is bent towards social aspects.”

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Sep 28 2005 (IPS)

It’s a cold, wet Sunday evening outside the Little Highbury pub. Inside, patrons are glued to a huge television screen showing an eagerly awaited football match between two English Premier League teams: Arsenal and Chelsea.

Yells, curses and sighs of relief punctuate the proceedings. Packed with soccer fans, many wearing the jerseys of the team they support, Little Highbury is a testament to the enthusiasm that surrounds English football in…Kampala.

Kampala?

Yes indeed. Over recent years, Premiership fever has taken hold of Uganda’s capital and other towns in the East African country, attracting supporters across the board: everyone from cart pushers to those who notch up frequent flyer miles has embraced the league.

It no longer comes as a surprise to find a group of primary school children passionately and authoritatively discussing who scored what goal in last night’s match, in which minute – or who is getting transferred to which team, at what cost. As likely as not, a five-year-old girl in a rural area will have the names of Liverpool players at her fingertips.

Fan clubs for British teams have been set up, and a good many Ugandans may now be more able to recite Premiership statistics, than identify the captain of their own national side.

Some parents have even named their children after football players or the home grounds of Premiership teams. Aldrine Nsubuga, a manager at a Kampala-based insurance company, called his first daughter Anfield: the name of Liverpool’s home ground. Local musician Bebe Cool, an Arsenal die-hard, baptised his only son Thierry after the team’s captain, Thierry Henry. (Little Highbury is named after the Arsenal stadium.)

“There’s lots of Ugandans who know much more about the English Premier League than some English fans,” says 53-year-old Danny Thompson, a British businessman and Arsenal fan who has lived in Uganda since 1997. “I have a (Ugandan) friend who knows much more about Arsenal than I do. He has never been to England, and he is just a young guy.”

Allan Ssekamatte, sports commentator and chairman of Uganda’s Chelsea fan club, agrees. “The Premiership has really absorbed this country. You would never tell that it is Africa,” he told IPS.

“The Premiership is just one example of how the world has become a global village.”

Ssekamatte believes enthusiasm for the league stems from a lack of good play locally. “Local football has been very, very disorganised,” he says, alleging mismanagement and corruption amongst sports administrators.

Dennis Mbidde, chairman of an Arsenal fan club, says improved information technology has also played a role. “The coming in of the internet has…contributed (to support for the Premiership),” he said in an interview with IPS.

As important has been the arrival of satellite television links which allow matches to be relayed live. MultiChoice Africa has become the main satellite broadcaster of league soccer, through its DStv subscription service. Three local FM stations also relay the games live.

On a lighter note, Ssekamatte admits that Premier League mania may have more to do with being trendy than a love of the game: “It has become a social fad. If you do not have and support a team, then you are out of fashion. So some people have begun supporting the Premiership to make a fashion statement.”

Fad or no, it’s something that is putting money is the pockets of certain Ugandans.

Although official statistics indicate that 38 percent of citizens live on less than a dollar a day, there is a demand for Premiership jerseys, which sell for 12 to 30 dollars.

“The market for the Premier League jerseys is even larger than the one for local gear,” says David Katumwa, managing director at Katumwa Sports Centre, the main supplier of sports jerseys in Kampala. “People want to identify with the winning team. For instance now, Chelsea jerseys are selling more.”

Certain entrepreneurs have taken to setting up make-shift cinemas called “bibanda” where matches are screened, and a nominal entrance fee charged. On occasion, translations of match commentaries into local languages are provided.

During the football season, bar owners who have invested in satellite television also make a killing in cover charges and beer sales.

But, it’s not just about watching your favourite team kick a ball around. Arsenal fans have become involved in efforts to improve communities through poverty eradication activities, anti-corruption crusades and helping AIDS orphans.

Last month, they donated 1,700 dollars to help expand the Kasubi Children’s School in Kampala, which caters for orphans.

The fans have also traveled to the war-torn district of Gulu in northern Uganda, where fighting between rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and government forces has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, over 20,000 children have been abducted to serve as soldiers in the LRA, or as sex slaves for rebels. In an effort to avoid this fate, over 4,000 children are now “night commuters”, traveling to Gulu town every evening to sleep in its streets. Many do not attend school for fear of being abducted by the LRA.

In spite of this hardship, there is still knowledge of – and support for – the Premier League.

“It is amazing the way they (the children) support football there. They come out of their IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and watch the games in the midst of their poverty and disease,” says Mbidde, noting that there are even Arsenal kids’ leagues in Gulu and Arua districts.

“It is so touching to see these people in that area, in those unique settings, supporting the club with all their hearts,” he added. “Despite the suffering, there is something that makes them forget about the war.”

“The experience I got there was very humbling.”

Fans also lend a hand in organising weddings and funerals for their fellow supporters. Members of the Chelsea fan club who are in need can borrow funds from the club, which requires those who join to pay annual subscriptions of up to 60 dollars.

Five years from now, says Mbidde, his club hopes to have a membership of 3,000, a Ugandan version of the Arsenal side – and to lure Thierry Henry to Uganda.

Ssekamatte is scarcely less ambitious.

“We hope to open Chelsea House here, where everything is branded as Chelsea. Fans can then watch their football there. We can then invite some people from the parent club to come over,” he says.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Aug 15 2005 (IPS)

Concern is growing over the prospects for press freedom in Uganda – this after claims by President Yoweri Museveni that the media were compromising security.

During a funeral service held earlier this month (Aug. 10) for Sudanese Vice-President John Garang, his entourage and seven Ugandans who were killed in a helicopter crash Jul. 31, Museveni expressed displeasure with the way in which the incident had been covered.

While local newspapers gave differing accounts of what happened, one publication – ‘The Red Pepper’ – reported that Garang had been shot in the head twice before the crash. This echoed speculation in Sudan that the country’s government was responsible for the death of Garang, a former rebel leader whose movement signed a peace agreement with authorities in January – after 21 years of civil war.

Sudanese officials dismissed the allegations, saying they had not been appraised of Garang’s travel plans (the former rebel was on board a Ugandan helicopter at the time of his death). However, the claims still sparked outbreaks of violence in Sudan.

Museveni threatened to close down ‘The Red Pepper’, as well as ‘The Weekly Observer’ and ‘Daily Monitor’ – all privately-owned publications.

"I am the elected leader of Uganda. I therefore have the ultimate mandate to run their affairs," said the head of state during the funeral ceremony, held in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. "I will no longer tolerate a newspaper which is like a vulture. For them, the misery of many is their joy.I will simply close it. Finish. End.These newspapers must stop or we shall stop them."

Shortly afterwards, K-FM radio station – a subsidiary of the Daily Monitor – was shut down by the Broadcasting Council (BC) after it aired a talk show which debated the possible causes of the helicopter crash. The host of the programme, Andrew Mwenda, was arrested on a charge of sedition before being granted bail Monday (Aug. 15).

Mwenda, who also serves as the political editor of the Daily Monitor, has denied the charge.

During the show he accused government of causing Garang’s death by, amongst others, providing him with a "junk helicopter". Mwenda further criticised Museveni’s threat to close down newspapers. The BC, which licenses and regulates radio and television stations, said K-FM had breached sections of the Electronic Media Law by airing such views.

Rights activists, media groups and opposition leaders have been quick to condemn the government’s actions.

"Threats by the president and other political leaders against the media are worrying and herald troubled times ahead for democracy in Uganda," said the president of the National Institute of Journalists of Uganda (NIJU), Linda Nabusayi Wamboka, in a statement.

"This act, at the time when the country is going through a political transition to multiparty democracy, has caused unnecessary outrage and risks worsening the security situation in the country," she added. "You don’t improve security by closing down channels of communication."

Wamboka urged the BC to re-open K-FM while it continued investigations into Mwenda’s conduct – adding that media organisations should be involved in these inquiries. She also noted, however, that the NIJU did not condone irresponsible journalism.

The vice-president of the East African Media Institute (EAMI), Michael Wakabi, described the closure of the station as a "most unfortunate action".

"EAMI takes exception to this act of deliberate intimidation that is clearly intended to stifle the media and freedom of expression in Uganda," he said.

Similar words came from the executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Livingstone Ssewanyan. "High handed actions that cause fear and a chilling effect on independent thought and free expression deserve to be resisted," he said in a statement. The initiative, based in Kampala, is a non-government group which promotes human rights in Uganda.

However, Information Minister Nsaba Buturo defended the steps taken by authorities, saying Mwenda’s remarks could have sparked widespread killing in Sudan.

"Strong comments from Andrew Mwenda were made at the height of great tension inside the Sudan which had already led to the death of hundreds of people.Everybody remembers what happened in Rwanda in 1994," he said in a statement released Aug. 14.

Upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the Rwandan genocide, in 1994.

The former rebel group headed by Garang, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), took up arms against the Islamic government in Khartoum in a bid to gain religious freedom and greater autonomy for southern Sudan.

Although Uganda is home to over 100 radio stations, several television stations and a dozen newspapers, the media’s relationship with government has at times been a troubled one.

Last year, the army barred journalists from reporting on a civil war in northern Uganda, where government has been fighting rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) since 1986. The military claimed that previous coverage of the conflict had compromised its plans; it also accused certain journalists of being rebel collaborators.

In October 2002, the Daily Monitor was shut down for a week after reporting that a military helicopter had been shot down by LRA rebels.

Furthermore, the 2002 Anti-Terrorism Bill provides for the death penalty to be issued against journalists who publish material that supports terrorism.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, May 18 2005 (IPS)

Nearly a decade ago, the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa was drawn up to improve the situation of inmates across the continent. In an ironic twist, however, the capital that gave its name to the initiative has yet to meet the goals of the declaration.

The same goes for the rest of Uganda.

Delegates of the 47 countries who attended the seminar where the 1996 declaration was set out recommended – amongst others – that the human rights of prisoners should be respected, and that jail conditions should allow them to live with dignity.

But as the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) has noted, prisons in the country are overcrowded and vermin-infested – a problem that looks set to become worse as jail construction fails to keep pace with increasing prison populations. (The government-funded UHRC is a constitutionally entrenched body.)

A census done in August 2003 showed that there were 17,523 inmates in Uganda, even though prisons should only have been accommodating 8,563. The number of inmates is expected to reach 20,000 by July this year.

"It is true that the prisons are overcrowded," Mary Kaddu, the assistant commissioner of prisons in charge of public relations, told IPS. "The situation is so bad that some prisoners have to sleep in turns."

She says the country’s main penitentiary, the Luzira Upper Prison, currently houses more than 2,000 inmates – despite having been built for 600.

In acknowledgement of the fact that justice delayed is often justice denied, the constitution stipulates that all Ugandans have the right to a fair, speedy and public trial. However, inquiries by rights activists have shown that certain offenders remain in custody for almost a decade before the disposition of their cases.

"Overcrowding is as a result of problems in the criminal justice system, which seems to be slow: there are so many cases that have not been concluded," says Martin Masiga, national coordinator of the Human Rights Network, an umbrella body for rights groups in Uganda.

According to Kaddu, inmates on remand account for 62.2 per cent of the total prison population.

The problem is aggravated by the fact that, in a country where 38 percent of people live below the poverty line, many prisoners are unable to afford bail.

And, when the courts are eventually ready to hear their cases, inmates may not be able to appear before the judge.

"We do not have transport to take these prisoners to court in time. We have only one old bus and we were given another one just recently. But even then, that is not enough," says Kaddu. In some areas, prisoners walk miles to get to court.

Blame has also been laid at the door of the police, who are accused of delaying justice through not concluding their investigations of jailed suspects rapidly enough.

However, police claim that they too are the victim of a lack of resources.

"As the population grows, criminals also increase. Yet the services in the police and prisons are not growing," police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi told IPS, noting that while there were 18,000 police officers in the service in 1971, this number had shrunk to 14,000 by 2004.

In 1969, Uganda had a population of 9.5 million. By 2002, it had shot up to 24.4 million, according to the latest National Population and Housing Census.

"It would thus be unfair to put the blame on the police. It’s like putting the cart before the horse…You find a policeman has 30 cases to investigate and he is not facilitated," adds Mugenyi.

In 2000, the Community Service Act was passed – a law that seeks to alleviate overcrowding in prisons through having inmates convicted of minor offences serve their sentences in the community.

This initiaitve, says Kaddu, is "working well".

The Swedish government has also provided funds to renovate and enlarge a number of prisons.

However, it doesn’t seem likely that these measures will relieve Ugandan authorities of the need to extend the country’s prison system. Equally, the budgetary constraints that prevented officials from doing so before are still in place.

"The issue of overcrowding has been raised many times, but the national budget cannot allow for expansion," says legislator Kabakumba Labwoni Masiko, a member of the parliamentary Defence and Internal Affairs Committee.

"They (prisoners) are criminals, yes, but they are still human beings – so the minimum standards should be met. The bottom line is that they are human beings."

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Apr 7 2005 (IPS)

Members of Uganda’s minority Muslim community have criticised their country’s domestic relations bill, saying it goes against the teachings of Islam.

To express their anger, thousands of Muslims from various parts of the country (police estimated 7,000), led by Sheikh Ramadhan Mubajje, held a demonstration in Uganda’s capital Kampala over the bill last week. The bill is now in parliament.

The protestors, who included women, young and old, wore hijabs, or Islamic veils, covering their head. During the procession, they carried placards and banners opposing sections of the bill on polygamy, bride price, cohabitation and age of consent to marriage – all of which are practiced in Islam.

Marching to parliament, they flashed out the four-finger sign, referring to the practice of marrying up to four wives by Muslim men, as stipulated in Islam. The protestors argued that the bill was against the teachings of the Koran, and that it tilts toward Christian laws.

Over the years, women activists in Uganda have regarded the bill as a powerful tool which could protect them from harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), bride price and widow inheritance. The women have accused the government of dragging its feet in passing the bill, which has been on the shelves for almost 40 years.

The bill, known as the Domestic Relations Bill (DRB), entitles ‘’men and women to equal rights in marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution”.

Activists say the bill will play a major role in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Women, especially those who carry the burden of looking after people living with HIV/AIDS, are more vulnerable to the virus than men.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), over 50 percent of new HIV infections worldwide occur in women. And in countries where young people account for 60 percent of all new infections, infected young women outnumber their infected male peers by a ratio of 2 to 1. UNAIDS also estimates that close to eight million women in sub-Saharan Africa (out of 10 million women infected worldwide) are HIV-positive.

Standing-by their religion, Uganda’s Muslim leaders have rejected the claims that they were out of touch with current changes in society.

”The Koran caters for every aspect of marriage, children and relationships. There is no need for making another law for Muslims. A man can marry depending on his ability to maintain and sustain the relationship,” Sheikh Mubajje said at the procession.

In a statement to the deputy Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, Mubajje said Muslims want the title of the bill changed and the marriage age defined as when a woman reaches the ‘age of puberty’ rather than the proposed 18 years.

While the Uganda Human Rights Commission in February had asked parliament to outlaw polygamy, arguing it undermines the dignity of women and welfare of the family, in Islam, not just the men defend polygamy. Even the women do.

‘’Very many women are looking for husbands. There are many widows. If the law prohibits men from marrying more than one woman, who will marry the widows?” asked Fatuma Kamulali, chairwoman of the Kampala-based Uganda Muslims Women’s Association for Daa’wa and Development.

Faridah Kakaire, the association’s secretary general, said: ”The law should not deny our men from marrying the number of women they want. A man marries to please Allah (God) and not to please people.”

According to research done by the Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) in 1999, about 85 percent of women interviewed in Uganda said they would not be in a polygamous marriage if they had a choice.

‘’Those women have not had a chance to read. No one has reached out to them to understand the provisions of the bill,” Norah Matovu Winyi, FIDA Chairwoman, said in an interview with Sunday Monitor, a local publication.

Some activists believe particular clauses of the bill have been misinterpreted. ‘’I think the Muslims are just misinterpreting the DRB, particularly the clause on the polygamy,” Solome Nakawesi Kimbugwe, the coordinator of Uganda Women’s Network, told IPS in a telephone interview.

”We think their coming out on the street to demonstrate shows that the Parliamentary Committee should go back to the drawing board,” she said.

Last week the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee concurred with some concerns of the Muslim community, ‘toning’ down sections of the bill, following visible cultural and religious sentiments.

The committee recommended that the title of the bill be changed to ‘Marriage and Family Act’ and that the law should recognise communities that use ‘marriage gifts’, a euphemism for dowry.

It also suggested that the word ‘’widow inheritance” be replaced by ‘’re-marriage according to customary norms”.

Nonetheless, the members of the Muslim community, who make up about 16 percent of Uganda’s population, have yet to react to the changes made by the committee.

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Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
MASAKA, Southern Uganda, Mar 29 2005 (IPS)

Uganda is one of Africa’s rare success stories in the fight against AIDS, having reduced its HIV prevalence from 30 per cent in the early 1990s to six per cent today. However, the pandemic has still taken a toll on the East African country, causing almost two million children to be orphaned.

About 1.7 million of Uganda’s 2.2 million orphans have lost parents to AIDS-related diseases, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Child-headed households are now a common sight in the country, especially in rural areas, and they are far more vulnerable to poverty that those households which have the benefit of adult supervision. Figures released by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development indicate that children constitute 62 per cent of persons who live in absolute poverty in Uganda.

Concern about the plight of AIDS orphans led to the creation of the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO).

This initiative, which got underway a decade ago, was spearheaded by first lady Janet Museveni. It aims to improve the lives of orphans by having local communities meet their needs. In part, this is done by offering small-scale loans to families that care for orphans.

Forty-seven-year-old Harriet Kiiza is one of those who have managed to take advantage of this microcredit scheme.

With little education and no means of generating an income, Kiiza and her six children initially lived from hand-to-mouth after the death of her husband in 1993. These days, she makes pancakes and doughnuts which are sold to shops and school canteens – all with the help of a loan from UWESO.

Kiiza has also managed to buy a plot of land. And, she takes care of no less than 12 children with the money earned from her business. Six of these children are the orphans of relatives, or of community members.

“It is here that we learnt the culture of saving money,” says Kiiza. She is now the treasurer of a group of microcredit recipients who meet every Thursday in Masaka to make loan repayments, balance their books – and deposit savings. UWESO clients are required to make regular savings contributions; and, according to the organisation’s website, they have managed to save just over 90,000 dollars to date.

Like Kiiza, some clients cook to generate an income. Others take out loans to sell charcoal, set up market stalls, farm poultry – or create other small businesses. In April 2004, the microcredit scheme was extended to provide applicants with loans for agricultural enterprises such as livestock and crop farming.

A network of volunteers stretching from villages to the national level helps manage the loan programme. This is achieved with support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations agency which focuses on rural poverty in developing nations, and the Belgian Survival Fund – set up in 1983 by Belgium’s parliament.

“UWESO is for women, but we also accept 10 per cent of men to join us. However when it comes to leadership, all are women,” says Eva Nangendo, UWESO’s portfolio officer. To qualify for loans, applicants have to be caring for at least four orphans.

“When I joined the project, we were trained and told that a woman cannot just sit idle and do nothing all day. We had to work and not wait for your husband to take care of you,” says 35-year-old Juliet Nassanga Kabiito who supports six children, four of them orphans.

“At first we did not know how to run the project. Today, we do. We do our own accounting, record keeping and even banking the savings,” she adds. “Many women fear taking loans, but it’s one of the best ways to develop. If they don’t want to borrow, at least let them learn how to save.”

The loans range in size from about 30 dollars to almost 1,760 dollars. Recipients are obliged to go for what UWESO terms “pre-loan disbursement training” to equip them with commercial and management skills. The organisation claims it has issued loans worth almost 11.5 million dollars to more than 40,000 clients since 1996.

But, it’s not all a tale of tidy profits and improved self-confidence amongst the women.

“In our businesses, sometimes you make some money, but sometimes you do not,” says 40-year-old Aisha Nakalembe, chairperson of one of the groups that meet weekly to tend to finances. “If you are paying a loan, you have to be consistent – but sometimes the business is not consistent. Yet, you have to keep that record of paying well.”

Even if a business is doing nicely, UWESO clients could find their ability to repay loans and save drained by bouts of illness in the family. In a country where many children may have contracted HIV from their parents before becoming orphans – or where microcredit clients themselves are HIV-positive – the constant spectre of disease clearly poses a challenge to the sustainability of microcredit schemes.

“The greatest problem comes when the children fall sick. It’s also difficult to pay school fees,” observes Nakalembe who has eight children, four of them orphans.

With these pressures in mind, UWESO has created a school fees loan scheme that assists clients to educate the children in their care, while continuing to meet their repayment and savings obligations.

The organisation says it also encourages clients to make contributions to the global insurance giant, American Insurance Group, to ensure money owed to UWESO is repaid in the event that a microcredit recipient dies.

In a bid to highlight the capacity of small-scale loans to improve the lives of those in the world’s poorest communities, the United Nations has designated 2005 the ‘International Year of Microcredit’.

Events being organised to mark this fact include the Global Microentrepreneurship Awards, to be held in 34 countries this year. Come November, a ceremony will take place in each of these states to highlight the achievements of those who are using microcredit to make a small, but important contribution to reducing global poverty.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 11 2005 (IPS)

Urban poverty has a familiar face – the image of the overcrowded and garbage-strewn slum. It may surprise many to hear, then, that three quarters of the world’s poorest people – about 900 million persons – live in rural areas.

“Not simply poverty, but extreme poverty is the normal experience of the majority of the rural population,” says the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in its 2002 ‘Regional Strategy Paper for Eastern and Southern Africa’. IFAD is a United Nations agency that focuses on ending rural poverty in developing nations.

Decentralisation – the transfer of power from governments in often distant capitals to local authorities – is frequently depicted as one of the strategies that hold the greatest promise for helping the rural poor. At present, most of these people rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Yet, they have tended to exercise little control over the policies which are drawn up for rural areas, and which have a direct effect on the success of farming.

While governments and aid agencies have embarked on decentralisation initiatives, the jury – in many instances – is still out on the success of these efforts. This week, IFAD and Uganda’s government jointly hosted a workshop in the capital, Kampala, to discuss how decentralisation policies in three East African countries – and IFAD initiatives in rural areas there – could be improved.

“What we want to do is understand how we can enhance our country presence by putting some more resources into the country itself, the institutions that are here, and the governments,” said James Carruthers, assistant president of the Programme Management Department at IFAD. The countries in the spotlight were Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Decentralisation has been underway in Uganda for more than a decade, this after the so-called Resistance Councils which enabled the National Resistance Movement (NRM) to take control of the country, were given the authority to manage local communities. The NRM took power after a five-year war against dictator Milton Obote.

Almost 70 percent of Uganda’s 24-million-strong population makes a living from agriculture.

“Decentralisation has transformed the political landscape of this country. This policy has taken root, and is more or less irreversible,” said Henry Muganwa Kajura, second deputy prime minister and minister of public service.

However, he added a rider to this statement: “In Uganda we are fully aware that decentralisation is not a panacea – but has a high potential to deliver good governance, a reduction in poverty and development.”

Local Government Minister Tarsis Kabwegyere had similar thoughts.

“The process of transformation still has to be advanced and supported because we are still a long way from where we are expected to be,” he noted. “We are at a stage of greater demand for converting decentralisation into transformation and development.”

In part, problems with decentralisation appear to stem from the fact that local authorities – while mandated to manage certain day-to-day operations in communities, and plan for their development – often lack the funds to do so.

“Lack of financial resources (in Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania) is affecting even basic aspects of service delivery. And the paucity of resources for operation and maintenance in all three countries makes it highly unlikely that the infrastructure entrusted to the care of local governments will be sustained as designed,” notes a 2004 IFAD report, ‘IFAD’s Performance and Impact in Decentralizing Environments: Experiences from Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda’.

As with Uganda, the economy of Tanzania, which has a population of 31.3 million, is dominated by agriculture: about 70 percent of Tanzanians are based in rural areas.

But, while decentralisation initiatives there date back to the colonial era, the notion of devolving power from the capital remains controversial in certain respects.

“Decentralisation is a political process, and governments will only allow it along if it will not rock the boat,” said Charles Keenja, Tanzania’s minister of agriculture and food security.

The 2004 IFAD report also hints at political constraints to decentralisation. It appears that establishing local authorities is no guarantee the concerns of citizens will make themselves heard over those of central government.

“By design, the executive rather than the elected branch of local government dominates decision-making in all three countries,” the report notes. “The executive branch, in turn, is controlled by a political party or coalition that has been in power at the centre for 12 years in Ethiopia, 33 years in Tanzania and 18 years in Uganda.”

Effective decentralisation policies would address the ills that typically plague African farmers, such as limited access to land, adequate water supplies – and the capital that could enable them to move beyond subsistence level.

Lifting these farmers out of poverty is also crucial for attaining the Millennium Development Goal that seeks to halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015. (Eight such goals were agreed on in 2000 during the Millennium Summit, held at the United Nations in New York. They include pledges to reduce extreme hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and combat diseases which are taking a particular toll on developing countries.)

“It is now clear that you cannot have a continent poor and its people miserable and the world continues normally. The misery here is now the misery everywhere,” Uganda’s Kabwegyere said this week, during the Mar. 10-11 workshop.

“It is upon all of us to make sure that we all advance.”

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 6 2005 (IPS)

Women in Uganda have accused the government of President Yoweri Museveni of using culture to undermine their rights.

Their concern heightened after the government announced a ban on ‘The Vagina Monologues’, a poetic play depicting domestic violence.

One of those critical of the ban, Jackie Wesonga had already bought a ticket to watch the play in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

‘’That was uncalled for, unfair and unconstitutional. How dare they do that at the time women are steadily getting their feet on the ground? That is suppression, taking us ten steps backwards,’’ complained 34-year-old secondary school teacher.

Organised by a group of women’s organisations in Uganda, a production of renowned poetess Eve Ensler, the show was aimed to raise awareness on violence, with women reciting their own stories of rape, incest, domestic battering and genital mutilation.

Proceeds of the play were meant to help the women in the conflict-torn north of the country.

But at a press briefing a week earlier, state minister of information Nsaba-Buturo announced that the play, which was supposed to start running Feb. 19, had been banned ‘because its title would corrupt the morals of society’.

The organisers, Akina Mama Wa Afrika, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and Uganda Women’s Network said it was the content and not the title of the play that mattered. The Vagina Monologues was meant to educate and inform the society, they said.

‘’This is tantamount to silencing women’s voices and is and has always been the major obstacle in addressing violence against women in a substantive way,’’ the groups said in a joint statement released at a news conference in Kampala Feb. 19.

Activist and former Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Miria Matembe, claimed the ban was a move by the government and the Media Council to silence victims of domestic violence and sexual harassment by men.

‘’If it was men staging it, I think it (the play) would have been allowed to go on,’’ said Matembe, a controversial figure who once proposed that all child defilers be castrated.

Wesonga, a survivor of domestic violence, told IPS: ‘’Women still have a long way to go – a hard battle to fight in this chauvinist world.’’

To be fair, the government of President Museveni has, since 1986, provided a relatively free atmosphere for civil societies to flourish compared to other previous regimes.

When it seized power 19 years ago, one of the most extraordinary sights was the presence of women soldiers fighting side by side with men in the bush, to liberate the country. With them came the likes of legendary female fighters Lieutenant-Colonel Nalweyiso and Captain Zizinga.

President Museveni’s government recognised women’s roles in development. With the appointment of the first vice-President Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, the first deputy Chief Justice Leticia Kigonyogo and other women as cabinet ministers, Museveni became a darling of the women, who gave him votes. In turn, the Ugandan leader announced that a third of all government jobs should be filled by women.

Also, an extra 1.5 points or credit was awarded to all girls to increase the number of females joining the university.

Several women’s organisations opened up, preaching the word of the women’s movement and gospel of emancipation, the first being Action For Development (ACFODE). This organisation, an initiative of women, had been refused by former regime of military ruler Idi Amin to attend a UN Conference in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi in 1985.

In 1978 Amin banned all leading NGOs from operating in Uganda. Today, however, out of the 302 Members of Parliament, 75 are women.

Since Museveni came to power, a number of action plans, including the 1999 National Action Plan for Women and the 1997 National Gender Policy were proclaimed to help women achieve equal opportunities. They outlined the strategic actions Uganda had to implement to boost the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.

Uganda’s 1995 constitution, which is regarded as gender-friendly, provides legal basis for equality between the sexes and affirmative action in favour of women.

‘’Women shall be accorded full and equal dignity of the person with men,’’ it says.

But last month’s incident has undermined all those gains.

Activist and first female Dean of Makerere University’s Law faculty, Sylvia Tamale says ‘’women have crossed the imaginary line between the private or domestic sphere and entered into the public sphere.’’ But that is not enough.

She describes many of the government achievements as ‘’top down’’ including the Affirmative Action policy where women were not involved in negotiating the terms. ‘’(The policy) has so many problems. For instance, women representatives are still elected by a male-dominated Electoral College.

‘’That means that their allegiance is to that Electoral College – men,’’ she says. Tamale believes that women leaders wield no real power in Uganda.

‘’We have more women quantitatively in positions of power, but qualitatively nothing has been done to enhance their participation,’’ she says, referring to former vice-President Kazibwe. ‘’Kazibwe was a vice President. But when President Museveni would travel, Kazibwe was not second in power. She was in power without power,’’ Tamale says.

Another area of concern is domestic violence. Wife beating – one of the worse forms of domestic violence, has, for example, been justified in certain circumstances.

According to the Demographic and Health Survey, the latest released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, more than three-quarters of Uganda’s women agree to wife beating as justified. The reasons include arguing with ones husband, going out without informing ones husband, neglecting ones children and refusing to have sexual relations with ones husband.

‘’This is not surprising because traditional norms teach women to accept, tolerate and even rationalise battery,’’ the report says. ‘’This norm is a great barrier to women’s empowerment with consequences for their health.’’

And this violence cuts across class, education and even tribe. Former vice-President Kazibwe, for example, publicly announced her divorce on grounds of battery by her husband.

To the chagrin of women, the Domestic Relations Bill, a legislation which would address issues like women’s property rights in marriage, rights to negotiate sex on the grounds of health, has never been passed.

‘’(The bill) has been on the shelves for decades and government is dragging its feet. That is a reflection of lack of political will on the part of government to implement the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action,’’ Tamale says.

She says: ‘’Some parts of our cultures have been thrown out because they are convenient for men. But when it comes to women’s rights, men say ‘that is against our culture’.’’

All these debates are academic. It is unlikely that the government will allow the Vagina Monologues to be performed in Uganda.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 1 2005 (IPS)

Reports. They gather dust on the desks of journalists and bureaucrats – after having been opened with reluctance, and closed with speed. Months of work may have gone into their production; but all too often, the only use for these weighty tomes seems to be as doorstops.

Even worse, the findings contained in reports are often disregarded by those who draw up policies on various social and economic issues.

Now, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), an independent think-tank based in the United Kingdom, is turning its attention to this and other mismatches between research and policy formation.

"ODI is now working on the interface between research and policy. We are trying to find out why some research feeds into the policy processes and why some doesn&#39t," says Naved Chowdhury, a project officer at the ODI&#39s Research and Policy in Development Programme.

"For various reasons policy makers do not use it (research) while making policy. We are trying to bridge up that gap," he told IPS at a workshop held in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, recently to discuss this issue. Similar meetings are being scheduled for Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda.

Chowdhury&#39s words were echoed by Julius Court, a research fellow at ODI.

"In many…parts of Africa and other parts of the developing world, this capacity (to link research and policy) really does not exist," he noted, while in other regions it had "become worse during the last few years".

Many participants at the Kampala workshop noted that officials frequently distrust the research findings presented to them, and are hence reluctant to incorporate these into policies.

In certain instances, there also appear to be differing priorities between researchers and policy makers.

"Our experience is that most of the research is not linked to policy," says Chowdhury. "Content is a big issue. Of course it needs to be…thoroughly researched. But also, I think it has to be relevant to the interest of the policy makers."

Presentation of research findings can, in its turn, be problematic. Policy makers typically want the findings presented to them in a way that is concise and easy to understand. However, what they sometimes get are reams of information, larded with jargon, graphs and tables that make it even more difficult to digest.

"The main point of research should be communicated in a brief, short, precise and direct form," observes Chowdhury.

While the internet has doubtless been hailed in the past as something that could make the volume of research information easier to store and manage, it too has its limitations – particularly in developing nations that are still labouring with slow connections to the World Wide Web.

But, not everyone blames bulky reports or a laggardly service provider for the disconnect between research and policy formation.

Francis Byekwaso, project and evaluation manager at Uganda&#39s National Agricultural Advisory Services, said certain non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were short on skills for implementing policies. Even if these groups are aware of innovative research findings, they may lack the ability to translate them into practice.

In this regard, Byekwaso pointed to the situation of certain NGOs involved in agricultural development in Uganda.

"They are normally not efficient in the area of business development. Although we trust them to develop farmer groups, by and large their capacity in rural development is still very weak," he noted.

Participants at the Kampala workshop highlighted instances where research had fed into policy development with beneficial effect.

Michael Wandukwa, project coordinator at FARM-Africa, a British-based NGO which helps poor farmers and herders, said research into the needs of poultry and goat farmers in the eastern Mbale and Sironko districts of Uganda had improved the lives of 375 individuals.

"There is now increasing demand for project activity in the area," he added.

However, delegates also noted that the failure to link research to policy could prove catastrophic. Court said this had been the case with the AIDS pandemic: "It highlights that when things go right, they can go right. But when they go wrong, they can actually get disastrous."

"HIV is such a problematic policy issue because if you don&#39t really understand the science early, by the time a large number of people are beginning to suffer and to die, the disease can be widespread throughout the population," he added.

Uganda is one of Africa&#39s success stories in the fight against AIDS, having reduced its HIV prevalence from 30 percent in the early 1990s to six percent today.

However, Southern Africa has become the epicentre of the pandemic, with one of the countries in the sub-region – Swaziland – registering the world&#39s highest prevalence rate of almost 40 percent.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Nov 16 2004 (IPS)

A promotions van drives by, its four loud speakers blaring news of a concert that is scheduled to take place over the weekend.

Along the same street, dozens of hooting cars – many in a dangerous state of disrepair – compete with each other to beat the rush hour traffic. A car alarm goes off, then a second, and a third.

At taxi ranks, hundreds of vehicles assemble to load passengers who are called to get on board. In the noisy St Balikudembe, Uganda’s biggest market, almost every vendor asks passersby in a sing-song voice to take something off the shelf.

Heard enough? Wait – there’s more.

Along the streets of Kampala, born-again Christians stationed at strategic spots are preaching – while in the distance, a call to prayer for Muslims is sounding over a public address system. The question is, could anyone who wants to pray in Uganda’s capital find a sufficiently quiet spot to do so?

Much has been said about the dangers of water and air pollution. But, Ugandan authorities are also concerned about noise pollution – particularly as evidence mounts of the links between poor health and an unremitting din.

According to the World Health Organisation, noise can induce stress and sleep disturbance – not to mention loss of hearing. Paul Kiwanuka, a doctor in private practice, says noise is also associated with changes in blood pressure and general fatigue, and that it can affect the development of children.

In an effort to bring noise levels in Uganda down, the Ministry of Water, Lands and Environment passed a set of ‘Noise Standards and Control’ regulations last year. As news of these rules appears to have passed most Ugandans by, however, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) issued a reminder earlier this month about the need to cap noise levels.

“The purpose of these regulations is to ensure the maintenance of a healthy environment for all people in Uganda – the tranquility of their surroundings and their psychological well-being – by regulating noise levels,” Doreen Kabasindi Wandera, the environmental audit and monitoring officer at NEMA, told IPS.

The regulations prescribe the maximum permissible noise at areas such as construction sites, and places of entertainment and worship. They also stipulate the volume that public announcement systems can operate at – although fire brigade, police and ambulance sirens are exempt from controls.

“Now, any person whose works or activity is likely to emit noise in excess must apply to NEMA for a license,” said Wandera.

People who have complaints about noise pollution can contact their local authority or NEMA, or file a case with the police. The new regulations allow environmental inspectors, local councilors and police officers to confiscate pieces of machinery and other items that are causing too much of a noise.

Those who contravene the rules may face a fine of up to 10,000 dollars – or up to 18 months imprisonment.

“With this notice (the announcement earlier this month)…some members of the public who did not know their rights are now coming out to claim them,” observes Wandera – this despite the fact that excessive noise can sometimes be short-lived, making it difficult to prove the offence.

Many of the complaints relate to noise at places of worship, entertainment centres, mines and quarries. Certain Christians claim the noise control regulations are a violation of their constitutional rights.

“The constitution gives us freedom of worship and different people do so in different ways. Some pray quietly while others prefer to shout out loud. Is there a problem with that?” asks Tom Malaba, a church-goer.

“We do not worship everyday. We make noise, but positive noise,” he adds.

Malaba also questions whether government really has enough manpower to police the noise regulations effectively: “These NEMA people sent out a notice banning smoking in public places. They are yet to stop public smoking. So how will they stop us from worshipping?”

However, for those who live near a stone quarry in Muyenga – a suburb south-east of Kampala – the rules have not come a moment too soon.

Residents such as Joseph Tamale have long complained of the noise from blasting at the quarry. “We have reported the issue of this stone quarry to the authorities for many years, but nothing is being done,” he told IPS, adding “I cannot move away from here. This is my family house. Something must be done to stop this."

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 25 2004 (IPS)

Lake Victoria has long been a name to conjure with. The world’s second-largest fresh water lake, and the largest in Africa, it stretches out endlessly – rippled by the breeze that characteristically blows over the lake.

Up to 30 million people live along Victoria’s 3,500-kilometre shoreline, which is shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. They depend for their livelihood on a plethora of activities that take place on and around the lake – everything from fishing and tourism to the generation of hydro-electric power.

However, alarm bells are being sounded about the effect that these activities are having on Lake Victoria.

According to the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP), which monitors both the quality and quantity of water in the lake, commercial activity and population growth are leading to increased pollution of Victoria through the deposit of human waste and effluent. (LVEMP is jointly managed by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.)

Agriculture is also encroaching on the wetlands that serve as catchment areas for the lake, posing an added threat to its future.

"As I talk now, the water quality is not very bad. But if we don’t do anything about it, it may get worse," Faustino Orach-Meza, head of LVEMP’s national secretariat in Uganda, told IPS.

"Right now it’s relatively clean, although we are facing the plankton problem…Those are signs that there is something wrong with the water quality," he adds. Runoff from activities around the lake has resulted in high levels of algae within its waters, which cause taste and odour problems that have to be treated at great cost.

Orach-Meza’s concerns are echoed by the latest edition of a study conducted every two years, ‘The State of the Environment Report for Uganda’, that was released last month.

"The quality of surface water has been deteriorating. Lake Victoria is being heavily polluted by both domestic and industrial discharge and by agricultural runoff," says the document.

An understanding of the problems that ail the lake does not necessarily translate into quick solutions, however.

Poverty and a lack of education on the part of people living around Lake Victoria are proving formidable obstacles in the drive to ensure that development of the area is sustainable.

At present, LVEMP works with farmers in several districts to inform them about the importance of using practices that conserve water and prevent the soil erosion that results from deforestation.

"One of the issues right from the beginning has been deforestation. We looked into what can be done to reduce this," says Orach-Meza.

But, "Few people adopt the suitable methods," he notes, adding "Others continue with their traditional methods of farming, and that can really be a headache. There are some who are not bothered about reforestation and better farming methods."

Locals also continue to harvest reeds from catchment areas to make mats, for sale. Certain brick-makers are wedded to the use of wetland soil.

Orach-Meza is not without hope, however, noting that there are instances where farmers have used sustainable practices: "When the farmers and peasants benefit and see that their crops are growing better with this practice, they get encouraged."

In addition, a company that has long been the target of environmentalists’ complaints, Uganda Breweries, now appears to be heeding concerns about Lake Victoria.

The firm is in the final stages of building a four-million-dollar plant to treat waste produced in the manufacture of beer, that is currently discharged into the lake. It has also set up a centre to educate staff about the threats facing Lake Victoria.

"Right now we are discharging (effluent) under permit," Agnes Okuuny Acom, the brewery’s quality assurance manager, told IPS. "We hope to have 90 percent reduction by end of November and full reduction by March."

Treated waste from the company will be sold to farmers as fertilizer. Uganda Breweries has been in existence on the lakeshore for over 50 years.

Also on a positive note, the water hyacinth – which once posed an enormous problem on Lake Victoria – has been dealt a blow.

This floating plant, originally from South America, had managed to cover substantial portions of the lake by the late 1990s. Hyacinth plants formed a mat on the surface of the water that prevented fishermen from going about their business – and disrupted the passage of ferries across the lake.

Intriguingly, the scourge was not brought under control by chemical means. Instead, weevils from South America that only eat water hyacinths were introduced into the lake (a weevil is a type of beetle).

Now, "We have suppressed it (the hyacinth) so much that it may not be able to come up again. The communities are sensitized and are able to get rid of weed using weevils," says Orach-Meza.

Much remains to be done, however.

"We now feel a little more comfortable that we have the capacity for research and for teaching. But we still need more," observes Orach-Meza.

While effluent flowing into Lake Victoria is receiving attention, the problems posed by solid waste remain largely unaddressed.

Rwanda and Burundi, which pollute the Kagera river that eventually flows into Lake Victoria, also have to be included in sustainable development policies.

"We are trying to bring them into our activities so that their input into…Kagera is reduced," says Orach-Meza.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Jul 12 2004 (IPS)

Uganda’s success in fighting AIDS has been justly celebrated. In 1993, the country had an HIV prevalence rate of 30 percent – this according to the Uganda AIDS Commission, which was set up by government to coordinate the fight against HIV. The rate now stands at six percent.

Health workers continue to face challenges in a crucially important area, however: the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Ida Ssekasi’s* story provides some indication of why this is.

After falling pregnant, Ssekasi took an AIDS test at an antenatal clinic, and discovered she was HIV-positive. A counselor advised Ssekasi to bring her husband along during the next check-up – something she never got the chance to do, as he threw her out of the house when he discovered her status.

“When I told him I was positive and that the counselor wanted to see him, he asked me why I took the test, beat me up and chased me away,” she told IPS.

Says AIDS counselor Cissy Kinaawe, “We get many cases of women who are thrown out of their homes by their husbands because they told them that they were positive. There are also many incidences of divorce.”

In 1999, researchers reported that a single dose of nevirapine to HIV-positive mothers and their new-born children reduced the risk of HIV transmission by 50 percent or more. In the absence of intervention, transmission occurs in the womb, during labour or as a result of breast-feeding.

But, four years after government introduced a programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission through the use of HIV testing, medication with nevirapine and other measures, ignorance and stigmatization of AIDS continue to stand in the way of the programme’s complete success. (In certain hospitals, HIV testing for expectant mothers has become mandatory – but it remains optional in others.)

Health workers say many pregnant women are reluctant to enroll in the programme because they fear negative reactions from their spouses. Some are simply not aware of the programme, while others are too poor to travel to the health centres that offer nevirapine.

Certain mothers-to-be turn to women who have traditionally served as community midwives, rather than go to health centres where anti-retrovirals (ARVs) can be administered.

Poverty has also stood in the way of preventing women from passing HIV to their babies through breast-feeding. With about 44 per cent of Ugandans living below the poverty line of a dollar a day, many mothers find they simply cannot afford to buy infant formulas to feed their children.

In other instances, the stigma surrounding AIDS encourages women to persist with breast-feeding. Those who don’t breast-feed fear their failure to do so will alert others in the community about their HIV status.

Health statistics tell the dismal tale of what this accumulation of fear, poverty and ignorance has led to. HIV/AIDS is currently the fourth most important cause of death amongst children under the age of five, according to Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

When one considers that about 24.4 percent of all babies born in Uganda are delivered to HIV-infected mothers (this according to the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS), the necessity of tackling the problem of mother-to-child transmission becomes even more evident.

AIDS activists say it’s essential that government ensure ARVs are available everywhere, even in remote corners of the country.

“The PMTCT (Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission) Programme people will tell you that nevirapine is everywhere,” an AIDS counselor in the capital, Kampala, told IPS.

“But the truth is that women in the rural areas do not have access to the drug. It’s only found at the referral hospitals,” she said, adding “Even if it’s free, there is still uneven distribution.”

PMTCT Co-ordinator Saul Onyango admits that there was a countrywide shortage of nevirapine in Uganda last year. The programme is backed by a five-year donation of free nevirapine from German manufacturer Boehringer-Ingelheim, while the United States-based Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development also provide support.

However, authorities hope that by the end of 2004, clinics in all 56 districts of the country will be supplied with ARVs. A concerted effort will then have to be made to ensure pregnant women and their partners are aware of the benefits of HIV testing, ante- and post-natal care.

“If you ask around, you realise that many still do not know about the PMTCT programme. You cannot take services that people are not aware of,” says Onyango.

“If we want them to take up the services, we need to improve the communication component. Get them to be aware before they go to the clinic, so that by the time they get there, they know what is there.”

Chris Baryomunsi, HIV/AIDS advisor at the UN Population Fund office in Kampala, agrees with Onyango’s views.

“The biggest challenge.is that the programme is still not reaching the majority of the people who are living in the rural areas,” he says, adding “The further away you go from Kampala, the more difficult it becomes.” Even condom access in rural areas remains a problem.

Baryomunsi told IPS that there is also a need for greater cultural sensitivity when formulating HIV prevention campaigns for pregnant women: “For instance, what are some of the factors that cause expectant mothers not to visit the health facilities?”

In the initial stages of their pregnancies, mothers-to-be do tend to visit antenatal clinics, where they are given the necessary information on HIV testing, and encouraged to deliver their babies in the health facility. However, many ultimately give birth at home or with traditional birth attendants (TBAs).

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, up to 94 per cent of expectant mothers visit antenatal clinics at least once during their pregnancy, but only 40 per cent are estimated to deliver their infants in hospitals.

“That means for the PMTCT Programme to be effective, it must also address the issue of mobilising communities, the women and TBA’s to be able to appreciate that they must deliver at the antenatal,” Baryomunsi says.

Studies done in western Uganda have further shown that cultural norms require women to give birth in a squatting position. In clinics, women are placed on a delivery bed, and give birth from a prone position.

In addition, the placenta is disposed of in clinics, whilst tradition in Uganda dictates that it should be saved.

“Those are some of the cultural setbacks that deny women access to the drugs. These are vital issues that we must look at and integrate in our national programme because they affect some of the outcomes,” Baryomunsi says.

Health workers also agree that more needs to be done to ensure new mothers return to clinics after they have given birth, so that their own health and that of their children can be monitored.

“We have been encouraging the mothers to come back to the health facilities, but in reality, few are coming back. And we are recognising that unless we strengthen that component, we are likely to be missing out,” Onyango says.

He says the programme is now looking at policies to ensure new fathers play a role in post-natal care.

“One of the objectives of this programme is to bring men on board. But it’s not as easy. Even in the rural areas when they escort their women to the maternal clinics, they just remain seated under a tree,” Onyango notes.

Cissy Kinaawe says her efforts to council the men have also run up against difficulties.

“In most cases these women come from polygamous marriages,” she says. This complicates efforts to include men in counseling sessions.

For any significantly extended counseling effort to go ahead, more health workers will be needed. Those involved at present are already over-worked.

But, Baryomunsi emphasises that adequate counseling is central to the success of efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

“At times when people talk about PMTCT, they only talk about the drug. But it involves a whole package, including information and services, which reduce the risk of MTCT,” he says.

* Certain names have been changed to protect the identities of those concerned

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Jun 2 2004 (IPS)

Incidents of sexual abuse, particularly of children, appear to be on the rise in Uganda. However, this apparent increase has not been matched by a similar rise in prosecutions. Instead, many families are still choosing to settle the cases out of court – despite the effect this could have on abuse victims.

According to police statistics, 804 cases of sexual abuse of minors were reported in 2001, 988 in 2002 and 3,052 in 2003. In addition, 52 rape cases were reported in 2001, 93 in 2002 and 181 in 2003.

However, the African Network For the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) – a Nairobi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) – has highlighted the fact that reported cases may only be the tip of the iceberg.

In a report entitled ‘Innocence at Stake – A Situation Analysis of Child Abuse in Uganda’ that was published last year, ANPPCAN says the findings of police, hospitals, media, the Uganda Human Rights Commission and other non-governmental organisations indicate that 4,495 minors were sexually abused in 2002.

“Girls were the major victims of abuse, accounting for 85.8 percent of the cases reported,” the document says, adding that most abused children were between nine and 17 years. Ninety percent of the alleged perpetrators were close relatives.

Still, strong cultural practices, shame and ignorance of the law are preventing abuses from being brought to court. Lengthy hearings and cross-examinations that put the victim on trial also play a part in this – as well a reluctance to put perpetrators in a position where they may have to face the death penalty.

It is a capital offence to sexually abuse a minor in Uganda. The minimum sentence is seven years imprisonment.

As a result, many families resort to out of court settlements that may involve the abuser making a payment of cows, goats, hens, sheep, clothes or money.

“Much as it would hurt me so much to see my daughter sexually abused, taking the issue to the courts of law and exposing her would just cause more pain for both of us,” says Jessica Nanfuka, a mother of two daughters.

“And it’s nothing to do with the financial benefits here. It’s just a better way in a society like ours…We avoid shame, and protect our daughters,” she told IPS.

According to the ANPPCAN report, 92 defilement cases were handled by the High Court in 2002. However, only 38 of the alleged perpetrators were convicted. Nine were acquitted, while two had the cases against them dismissed.

A sizable number of the remaining cases ran into difficulties because witnesses failed to appear in court.

“People are not vigilant in going to court to testify because of the lengthy procedures. They often give up and the magistrates cannot go on,” says Sarah Mwebaze, a programme officer at the Ugandan chapter of ANPPCAN.

Some are not even aware of the procedure to follow when a child is abused. “They come to us when they have not even gone to the police and no police surgeon has carried out a medical examination,” Mwebaze adds. As a result, evidence of the crime is lacking.

“The community is still ignorant about what should be evidence and what should not. They also do not prioritize the legal way,” she told IPS. “They feel that paying money to a police surgeon – for those who know he exists – it’s a waste of time and money.”

Some Ugandans also shy away from the prospect of being instrumental in the death penalty being imposed on an abuser. This is especially true of instances where the accused is a relative, or in villages where people have closer relationships than is the case in urban areas.

“I would not like to send my sister’s son to jail, one who could actually be facing death because he had an affair with a teenage girl. That is one of the reasons why reporting cases of defilement is a bit low, and why people prefer to solve the issue out of court,” Mwebaze says.

Even the structure of Uganda’s court system plays a part in preventing trails from going to term.

A 1998 statute gave Local Council (LC) courts a certain amount of authority in cases which involve sexual abuse of minors – even though the 1995 constitution sees this crime as a capital offence, punishable only by the High Court.

This created a ‘grey area’ where LC courts make rulings in abuse cases – and appear to favour out of court settlements. “It’s our job to settle these problems. Many times, parents prefer to do it that way, and we are here to serve the people,” says George Sserungoji, a Local Councillor in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

Rights activists disagree. “Sexual abuse of minors is a capital offence. They are not cases to be solved by the LC courts. The LCs are only supposed to assist the police to get the offenders and not to judge cases,” says Rosemary Nyakikongoro, an advocacy officer at Action For Development (ACFODE), a women’s NGO in Kampala.

Her words are echoed by Mwebaze: “In our advocacy programme, we are trying to emphasize to the LCs that their powers are limited to a point. There are some things they can do and (some) they cannot do. Of course it’s a long route, but we have to start somewhere.”

Certain court officials have argued that the management of abuse cases would be made easier if the age of consent in Uganda was lowered from 18 to 16.

But, “As child rights advocates, we are against lowering the age of consent. We are also advocating for reducing the sentence to life, rather than death,” Mwebaze told IPS. This reduction in sentencing is contained in a proposed Sexual Offences Act.

Mwebaze adds that there is also a need for other penalty revisions. The punishments meted out to adults, she argues, should not necessarily be the same as those issued to teenagers: “A man of 45 years who defiles a girl of 16 years should receive a different penalty from a teenager who commits the same crime.”

ACFODE has the same view. “The kind of punishment that is given to a person who has defiled a three-month-old baby should not be the same kind of punishment given to someone who has sexually abused a 17-year-old,” says Nyakikongoro.

ACFODE is now trying to make parents aware of how to care for children who have been sexually abused – and to view them as something other than ‘spoilt’.

“In one of our major sensitization programmes, we are going to be targeting parents, the LC structures and the schools, because schools are big grounds for sexual harassment, including child-to-child sexual abuse,” Nyakikongoro told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
ENTEBBE, Apr 15 2004 (IPS)

It weighs up to 250 kilogrammes. The Nile Perch, popularly known here as ‘sabulenya’, is one of Uganda’s most consumed fish species after tilapia.

It was introduced to Lake Victoria, the world’s largest inland fresh water, in the 1950s and 1960s. Today the Nile Perch constitutes up to 50 percent of the catch in Uganda, some of which is exported as fillet to Europe, Asia and the United States.

Communities living along the lake and River Nile – a tributary of Lake Victoria – cook the fish in several ways. It is sometimes smoked and prepared with peanut paste, or just boiled and fried to make gravy.

The Nile Perch has become a cheap source of protein, often referred to as ‘aquatic chicken’. Yet statistics show that the majority of Ugandans go hungry.

According to the latest ‘Economic Policy Research Bulletin’ published by the country’s Makerere University, 80 percent of Ugandans suffer from “some form of malnutrition” because most of the fish is sold and not consumed by the needy.

Another survey, released by the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics, says 39 percent of children – less than six years of age – are stunted.

About 90 percent of Uganda’s population depends on agriculture. Fish catch is estimated at only 250,000 metric tonnes annually, something which G.W. Otim-Nape, Executive Director of the National Agricultural Research Organisation, says is not enough for a growing population.

Uganda’s population is growing at 3.4 percent per annum, with 38 percent of the people living below the poverty line, according to the 2002 official statistics. Government is planning to bring that figure down to 10 percent by 2017 through its Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP).

Uganda’s population grew from 16 million in 1991 to 24.7 million in 2002.

“It is expected to increase to 32 million in ten years. The per capita consumption of fish for an average Uganda is estimated at 15 kilogrammes per annum,” Otim-Nape told IPS. “If we go by that figure (32 million people), we will require roughly 470,000 metric tonnes of fish per annum in ten years.”

“It means that the difference (220 metric tonnes) should come from somewhere. Either we import or we produce locally,” he said.

In 1990 Uganda recorded 1.4 million dollars worth of fish exports. That figure rose to 87.5 million dollars in 2002, according to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (PEAP) Report released in Mar. 2004.

Due to its culinary qualities, the Nile Perch has become a popular delicacy, with over 1,000 tonnes of fillet flown to Europe alone, according to Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association (UFPEA).

Increasing quantities of fillet are also being airlifted to the United States despite the freight cost burden of almost three dollars per kilogramme.

In Oct. 2000 the European Union cleared Uganda after it found that Uganda’s fish meets high international standards in terms of handling, processing and marketing.

Lake Victoria is the only fresh water in which the Nile Perch is found in abundance for commercial use.

However, the Nile Perch species that survives in the wild is carnivorous, feeding only on live fish. Fishermen have had complications breeding it, prompting demands to tame the species, Otim-Nape said.

“When you bring it (Nile Perch) in for aquaculture, it can hardly survive. But our scientists have domesticated it and made it survive in ponds. We have been able to tame it from feeding on live fish to feeding on artificial diet like chicken feeds,” Otim-Nape said.

The other ingredient the fish feeds on is sunflower cake.

Pollution also poses a major problem. The use of cages, which will act as nets while feeding the fish, is important, says Godfrey B. Mbahinzireki, the officer in charge of the Fisheries Resources Research Institute in Kajjansi, south of Kampala.

To improve quantity, Ugandan scientists have adopted a method, which they borrowed from Southeast Asia, to change the sexes of the fish.

“We have been able to develop a technique where we reverse the sexes of the fish through the male hormone testosterone. This is done at an early stage. The significance is that the males, whose sex have been reversed, will not be able to reproduce in ponds and therefore the numbers remain controlled, making feeding easier and quality better,” Otim-Nape said.

“The male fish grows faster as mono-sex,” Mbahinzireki explained as IPS takes a tour of the laboratories.

Some say the hormones used to change the fish sexes could pose health problems. “These fish are healthy and harmless. There are no risks involved as substances used wear out in a few weeks,” Mbahinzireki said.

Much as fish farming is seen as one of the strategies to increase food production, there is still need to protect the stocks that are in the lakes.

Fishermen at Kasenyi, the largest landing site at the shores of Lake Victoria in Entebbe, a town 25 kms south of the capital Kampala, complained to IPS that the fish sizes in the water body are becoming smaller and smaller. They blame this on the feeding habits of the Nile Perch.

“There is no type of fish that the Sabulenya (Nile Perch) does not eat. Often, we trap them with fish stuck in their mouths. They even eat their young ones,” says Bosco Ssebugwawo, a fisherman.

According to Otim-Nape, fishermen also habitually catch immature fish, which depletes the stock.

Uganda’s fishing industry employs 300,000 people with 1.2 million directly dependent on the industry as their main source of income, a PEAP report says.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Apr 2 2004 (IPS)

People with disabilities in Uganda say they have been marginalised for too long. They are now demanding that their basic rights be restored and recognised.

Addressing a news conference at their headquarters in the capital Kampala on Mar. 29, members of the Uganda National Association of the Deaf (UNAD) said government should commit itself to granting them access to education and employment.

The government, they say, should also avail sign language interpretation at all public places.

According to the 1991 Population and Housing Census, there are about 2.4 million disabled people in Uganda, 10 percent of who are deaf. Around 80 percent of the deaf cannot read and write and 70 percent cannot count to 10, according to the census. Rights groups say these figures could rise if the 2001 census is released.

Joseph Mbulamwana, UNAD’s information officer, urged government to promote education for the deaf. “Education is the basis of everything in life. Without education, there is no work. You cannot learn to read and write,” he says.

Much as there are policies the government is working on to help the deaf continue with their education, Mbulamwana says “much of that is left on paper. There is no action.”

But Christopher Wimon Okecho, of Special Needs Education in the Ministry of Education, says the government has not ignored the deaf.

According to him, ‘The Basic Education Policy and Cost Framework for Educationally Disadvantaged Children’ that was discussed by the ministry of education in Oct. 2002 is awaiting cabinet approval.

The policy calls for construction of schools, payment of special teachers and translators and introduction of a sign language curriculum as required by the 1995 Uganda Constitution, he says.

“All the complaints by UNAD are here (in the draft policy). It’s only implementation that is left. That is the problem that government is facing now,” Okecho says.

“We recognise that these children need special care, but the policy requires a lot of money which is not readily available,” he says.

“The level of implementation is the problem. Things cannot be done overnight. The resources that are available allow things to be done in phases,” Okecho explains.

Deaf people also complain about the “unrealistic mode” of examination setting and marking by the Uganda National Examination Board at both primary and secondary levels. They say the examiners have no skills in handling deaf students.

Since 1997 deaf students have been writing the same examinations with other children. Before then, they had their own vocational education syllabus.

Okecho says deaf children should be given an education that puts them at equal footing with other children.

“When you give them only vocational training, they will think they are inferior,” he says.

Mbulamwana says the number of deaf school dropouts is growing. When the World Bank-backed Universal Primary Education started seven years ago, about 15,000 disabled children enrolled, he says.

“After seven years, less than 1,000 sat for Primary Leaving Education. Many of them dropped out. Why? Because they have nowhere to go,” he says.

In fact, the Ministry of Education’s Monitoring System 2003 report shows that the number of deaf children in school reduced as they advanced.

Some 14,897 deaf children joined primary one in 2003. But for primary seven, the number was as low as 2,185. Only 443 students were recorded in senior one and 75 in senior six. After senior six, a student has has passed examinations proceeds to the university.

“The students are facing challenges of being supported in the classes,” the report says.

IPS met some of these challenges when it visited Kampala School for the Deaf, which has 194 children. Of these, seven are deaf who have lost their sight.

The school has 24 teachers. Of these, only 18 are on the government payroll. “All the teachers are supposed to be paid by the government but it is not easy to get access to the government payroll,” says Edmond Musoke, the acting head teacher.

He says 12 children are admitted to his school every year. “There are so many children out there who would like to join this school but we do not have enough places. The challenge we have is to get these children to the level of their counterparts who can hear. This is because they all write the same examinations,” he says.

Musoke complains that the command of the written grammar of the deaf students is not as clear as that of their counterparts with no hearing problems. He attributes the problem to the children’s first language – sign language.

“We are trying to persuade the Uganda National Examinations Board to revise their question setting as well as the language for the deaf,” he says.

Some deaf children travel to neighbouring Kenya to pursue secondary education. This is because Ngora High School, which was set up as a pilot project for the deaf in Uganda, has limited capacity.

The deaf also complain about human rights abuses, says Florence Mukasa, UNAB’s Gender Officer.

“Culturally, women belong to the kitchen. This also affects deaf women and girls,” she said through an interpreter Prossy Ssubi.

“Deaf women have been oppressed by a double force. We are first of all deaf, and we are women. When parents are taking their deaf children to school, they choose a deaf boy rather than a deaf girl.

“We have many girls who have no education, and they are not employed,” she says.

Deaf people also have no access to HIV/AIDS messages especially on electronic media. “The deaf cannot get access to this information because they cannot hear the news,” Mukasa says.

Only the state-run Uganda Television has translation facility for the deaf at news time.

Alex Ndeezi, a Member of Parliament representing People With Disabilities, says they are targeting employers to take in deaf people.

“We want employers to change their attitude towards deaf people,” he says.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 20 2004 (IPS)

Transporters and taxi drivers from Rwanda are learning how to fight HIV/AIDS from their counterparts in neighbouring Uganda.

A delegation of eight members from the Association De Transport En Common (ATRACO) in Rwanda visited the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Mar. 15-18 to learn more on how to fight the disease.

While in Kampala, the Uganda Transporters and Drivers Association (UTODA) arranged a meeting with ‘The AIDS Support Organisation’ (TASO) which helps people living with HIV/AIDS.

At TASO, the transporters met people living with HIV/AIDS who openly gave them testimonies as well as advice on accepting the disease and living positively after infection. The Rwandans were promised a free counselling training at TASO.

Sylvain Nsabimana, ATRACO Secretary General who led the delegation to Uganda, said their main interest was to learn about HIV/AIDS and how Uganda is fighting it.

"We came in to see what Uganda is doing in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We want to know what programmes their drivers are involved in. This disease was first recognised in Uganda, but today, the prevalence is going down here," Nsabimana said.

"We have also learnt that HIV/AIDS is not a taboo anymore in this country. People come out and openly declare their status. This is not the same in Rwanda where people hide it. In Uganda, people testify and tell you how long they have been infected," he told IPS.

Uganda’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rates have fallen from 30 percent in the late 1980s to 6 percent today. In recognition for his active role in the fight against the disease, President Yoweri Museveni has received three international awards.

Since it was formed in 2000, ATRACO has been involved in condom and brochure distributions, as well as in screening video clips and on avoiding HIV/AIDS. The group’s offices are situated in taxi parks all over Rwanda and access is free to all. ATRACO has over 7,000 members, including taxi drivers, their assistants as well as their families.

"The drivers decided to embark on this programme because they realised that they’re always on the move. Sometimes they’re gone from home for days. These drivers are young, and many of them are teenagers. So they’re vulnerable to HIV/AIDS," Nsabimana said.

He believes the drivers can help in spreading the HIV/AIDS message because they travel a lot around the country and meet people. "They can also easily get infected or infect others with HIV/AIDS due to their mobility," Nsabimana said.

In Rwanda, drivers are encouraged to carry condoms in their taxis and distribute them to passengers on a daily basis, he said.

According to UNAIDS, Rwanda, with a population of 7.9 million, is one of the nine African countries most severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic with an overall HIV prevalence rate of 11-13 percent. About 500,000 Rwandans are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS. Of these, roughly 50 percent are women and about 13 percent are children under 15 years. Young people (under 20 years) comprise 60 percent of the country’s population.

Nsabimana says condoms are distributed without discrimination, including to children and elderly people of 60 years old.

"The HIV/AIDS message is sent out using all available means, including the television. Anybody can access it. Whoever wants to listen to the message is welcome. We cannot leave any age group out. Even three year-olds need to know about HIV/AIDS," he said.

In a country which is still recovering from the 1994 genocide, which left up to a million people dead, HIV/AIDS is now one of the leading causes of death there. According to the Rwandan Ministry of Health, the leading causes of the AIDS pandemic include economic hardships, civil strive, the practice of multiple sex partners, availability of commercial sex and resistance to talking about sex and condom use.

"With a staggering one-third of households in Rwanda headed by females, the epidemic is exerting a disproportionate impact on women who are economically, socially and sexually vulnerable," says a recent report on HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.

By 2005, the report estimates that the death rate in Rwanda will be 40 percent higher due to HIV/AIDS than it was in 1990 and life expectancy will drop to 32 years by 2010.

While there is a high knowledge level of HIV/AIDS among the population, there is a low condom use, according to a ‘Behavioural Surveillance Survey’ conducted in Rwanda last year. In the transport sector for instance, over 92 percent of drivers were aware of means of HIV/AIDS prevention, but only with occasional use of condoms.

According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), AIDS has orphaned one million children in Rwanda. UNICEF estimates that 5,500-7,000 children are born to HIV-infected mothers every year.

Rita Nyirahabimana, one of the ATRACO members, says Rwanda’s HIV/AIDS programme helps not only those who are infected but also their families, particularly orphans and widows.

Rwanda is running a programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission in a number of hospitals. But despite these efforts, UNAIDS says by 2015, AIDS is expected to increase the country’s already high infant mortality rate by 10 percent.

UTODA’s national chairman John W. Ndyomugyenyi welcomed ATRACO and praised their initiative in the fight against HIV/AIDS, including the stocking of condoms in first aid boxes in taxis.

"The transport industry involves so many people. With it, one can carry the virus from Kabale (southern Uganda) and disseminate it in Arua (northern Uganda). That is why drivers need to be sensitised.

Ndyomugyenyi said, "We are targeting road safety and HIV/AIDS. Those two are national issues and they are important."

In Uganda, border points and stopovers have reported high incidences of HIV/AIDS infections. Business activity thrives in these small towns and trading centres with the selling of alcohol in bars as well as commercial sex.

Rwanda’s transporters, who have realised their vulnerability, intend to make the trips regular in order to exchange ideas with their Ugandan counterparts. They also hope to target all their counterparts in the Great Lakes Region – which along with Uganda comprises Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – with the HIV/AIDS message.

Maybe their effort could save millions of lives that would have been lost to HIV/AIDS.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 13 2004 (IPS)

The ideal of gender equality in Uganda was brought closer to realisation recently with a Constitutional Court ruling on the country’s Divorce Act.

The court struck down ten sections of the act, saying they contravened a clause in the constitution that guaranteed women equal rights to men. The case which led to the ruling was filed by the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers.

While the Divorce Act previously allowed men to leave their wives in instances of adultery, women were not granted the same right. They had to prove their husbands guilty not only of adultery, but a range of crimes that included bigamy, sodomy, rape and desertion.

On Mar. 10 however, a panel of five constitutional judges unanimously upheld the view that grounds for divorce must apply equally to all parties in a marriage.

“Why this judgement was a landmark, is because it establishes firmly, beyond all doubt, the equality of the sexes – bringing life into the constitution, and giving it real meaning,” said a Kampala lawyer who declined to be named.

“Initially it (the Divorce Act) meant that if my wife caught me committing adultery with my housemaid, that was not…a ground for divorce, as long as I am providing for her and I am not cruel to her…(But) if I found her doing the same thing with someone else, that would be grounds for divorce. That’s not equal treatment of men and women,” he added.

The judgement also answered the demands of a 2003 report by Human Rights Watch, “Just Die Quietly: Domestic Violence and Women’s Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Uganda”. The New York-based non-governmental organisation said that domestic violence in the East African country was making women vulnerable to contracting HIV, and that laws which hampered their ability to leave abusive relationships should be repealed.

A women’s rights activist and member of parliament, Betty Amongin, believes that as much as the ruling is a step forward, women still have a long way to go in fighting discrimination.

“The principle of equality should be a benchmark to measuring everything, including access to jobs,” she said.

Amongin claims there are several other laws that do not conform to the constitutional principle of equality between the sexes – including the Land and Marriage Acts, which prevent women from owning property or taking custody of children after divorce.

“We must put forward a fight so that issues like co-ownership of land are looked into. Women are responsible for over 80 percent of the agricultural produce in the country,” she said.

The payment of bride price is also likely to complicate efforts at smoothing the divorce process for women. Ugandan tradition requires a groom to give gifts of money, and perhaps also livestock, to his prospective parents-in-law. However, these gifts must be returned if the wife leaves her husband.

In most cases this is not possible, as the bride’s family has already spent the money. This creates a situation where women are encouraged to remain in unhappy marriages, no matter what the personal cost.

Last week’s ruling will also allow wives to claim damages from the women who committed adultery with their husbands. Previously, only men could sue those who were caught in adulterous relationships with their wives.

In addition, the court’s decision contained at least one piece of good news for men. From now on, they will be allowed to claim alimony from their ex-wives.

It is hoped that the 1904 Divorce Act will ultimately be replaced by the new Domestic Relations Bill – a more progressive piece of legislation that was tabled in parliament last December.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Feb 23 2004 (IPS)

“A baby boy weighing two kilogrammes was abandoned in Mulago hospital labour suite last evening. The mother, Peace Busingye, 17, had delivered earlier that day.”

That is the introduction to a letter written from the Kampala City Council Probation Office to the management of Little Angels Children’s Home, seeking a home for the one-day old baby.

The letter named the child, born in Uganda’s largest hospital Mulago in the capital Kampala, Joshua. But Joshua did not live long. Always frail and sickly, he succumbed to illnesses and died a year later.

“We get those kinds of cases quite a lot. Many of the children that are brought here are from teenage mothers,” says Max Mugisha, the founder of the Little Angels Children’s Home in Rubaga, a suburb of Kampala.

“Yes, we have incidences of children suspected to be infected with HIV/AIDS,” he says.

Newspapers are full of stories of young girls arrested after being suspected of dumping their newly born babies, a result of unplanned teenage pregnancies.

Teenage pregnancy prevalence rate has dropped from 43 percent to 31 percent in the past few years due to increased use of condoms, reduction of sexual partners and delay in sexual debut, according to the 2003 State of Uganda’s Population Report.

Fifty-two percent of Uganda’s 24.7 million people are below 15 years, according to the 2002 Population and Housing Census.

In a society that has a high desire for children, childbearing and sexual activities start as early as 14 years. By the age of 15, 30 percent of women have had sexual intercourse and by 18, the proportion increases to 72 percent, according to the 2003 report.

The fertility rate, estimated at 6.9 percent, has been attributed to low levels of education, low incomes and social status, early marriages, low contraceptive use, religious and cultural beliefs as well as the need for old-age security. Contraceptive use is as low as 23 percent and 50 percent of the population marries before the age of 18, the report says.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says early childbearing is a major cause of death among young women who are also prone to experiencing complications at birth.

Early marriages, attributed to cultural and religious beliefs, have also increased the number of teenage pregnancies. Many cannot negotiate condom use due to religious or cultural reasons.

In its fight against HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), Uganda has recognised the need to control teenage pregnancies. The government and civil society groups are promoting Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) through the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) model.

“Delay sex, know your rights, avoid early pregnancy/marriage, stay in school, prevent HIV/STDs” goes the constant messages reminding young people about their responsibility to stay well and alive.

In 2002, President Yoweri Museveni directed that sex education be taught in primary schools. But the government has yet to produce a guidebook on sex education for teachers.

While waiting for the guidebook, the ministry of education is advising head teachers to talk to their students once a week about HIV/AIDS during school assemblies.

‘Straight Talk Foundation’, a non-governmental organisation, produces publications, reaching an estimated three million young people as well as parents and teachers in Uganda every month.

Some 400,000 copies of “Young Talk” for primary school pupils aged 10-14 and 230,000 copies of “Straight Talk” for secondary school students aged 15-19 are published monthly. They carry messages relating to growing up, relationship and love, delaying sex, using a condom, and preventing HIV/STDs and testing for HIV.

The two publications are translated into local languages so as to reach a wider audience. The Foundation also has a half-hour “Straight Talk Radio Show” that broadcasts on 14 radio stations in four local languages.

Over 230 “Straight Talk clubs” have been formed in secondary schools and communities around the country. They discuss and exchange ideas about reproductive health.

“The club has enabled me to avoid unwanted pregnancy by teaching me the benefits of condom use,” says Rita Amanyire, a “Straight Talk” member in a Kampala secondary school.

“Since I started reading ‘Straight Talk’, I have stopped having sex. Had I begun reading it much earlier, I would not have lost my virginity at an early age,” says Vincent Khaukha, a teenager.

Both students and school heads benefit from the two publications.

“Your sensitisations have a positive impact on our schools. Senior women teachers now have regular meetings with the girls. Defilement cases by teachers have reduced,” says Kura Vasco, a district education officer.

Last year the Population Services International (PSI) Uganda, a non-profit-making organisation, working under the mandate of the ministry of health, took a group of local musicians to schools to highlight the risks of early sex.

The group, which focuses on behavioural change, advocates for abstinence and condom use.

“Teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS are related. If you can educate people how to abstain or use a condom, it will protect you from pregnancy as well as HIV and STDs,” says Alison Mobley, PSI Director for HIV/AIDS.

Last December PSI launched “Kikosi”, a comic book with a teenage character living a positive life. The book, which is produced monthly, is distributed free among teenagers at secondary school level.

“The book is written in such a way that it’s all interesting for the reader,” Mobley says.

Two weeks ago, a group of local musicians attended a one-week workshop on Sexual and Reproductive issues at the German Foundation for Youth Development (DSW/BONITA) Training Centre to instil in them behavioural change and communication skills.

DSW Country Director Bernadette Babishangire said music plays a major role in highlighting the risks of HIV/AIDS.

“It is crucial that the musicians are equipped with knowledge and skills so that they can effectively communicate and deliver accurate, clear and relevant messages to adolescents,” she says.

“Teenage pregnancies are all the consequences of unplanned sexual encounters. When we asked the students why they engaged in sex, they told us it was just fun. They said it was pleasure and an alternative to reading books,” says Richard Kaweesa, a musician.

It is, however, too late for some teenagers to return to school. “It’s tough being a teenage mother,” says Beatrice Achiro, who became a mother at 17. Now at 23 she feels the pregnancy ruined her future. All she does now is selling vegetables in a roadside market.

“Not only do you drop out of school, but you also face the challenge of looking after the child. If I had to do it all again, early sex would definitely not be an option for me,” she says.

The greatest challenge remains HIV/AIDS.

UNAIDS says HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among people aged 15-49 years.

Out of every new HIV infections that occur, more than 50 percent are among young people below 25 years. And young girls carry a high risk of 3-6 percentage times to HIV infection compared to the males, UNAIDS says.

Although HIV/AIDS prevalence rates have dropped from 30 percent to six percent by 2002, the number of deaths persists in Uganda, according to official statistics. By the end of 2001, Uganda had over two million cases of HIV infection, of which 950,000 had died of AIDS.

Fighting teenage pregnancies could be one way of saving a young productive generation.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Feb 6 2004 (IPS)

Hail a taxi in New York City, and the odds are that your driver will be a wise-cracking male cabbie who’s unafraid to share his philosophy about life with you.

But, do the same in Kampala, and you may just get a sharp female graduate who’s turned to taxi driving as a way of getting ahead in Uganda’s uncertain job market.

Margaret Isiko, 27, is a case in point. She’s one of 16 women who’ve taken the wheel of metred taxi cabs that were introduced in Kampala last month. At the moment, 30 of these yellow cabs are plying the streets of the Ugandan capital.

Isiko has a bachelor’s degree in hotel management, catering and tourism, and previously worked as a marketing executive at an amusement centre. When she saw a newspaper advertisement calling for women taxi drivers, she applied with no real expectations: “But when we were told about the package, I thought it was cool!”

Now Isiko combines her work as a “cab captain” with marketing AfriCar: the indigenous company that brought yellow cabs to Uganda.

“It’s interesting (work), although there are challenges that come with it,” she told IPS.

“Sometimes men tend to get surprised at a woman driving a cab. Some even tease you. When they see a lady in the driver’s seat they say, ‘How can a lady drive? Can I drive you instead?’.” Less positively, “Some men feel threatened and make all sorts of comments. ‘Ladies have taken all our jobs’ they say on the streets.”

Augustine Ssentongo, a male cab driver in the same company, doesn’t see his female colleagues as a threat.

“We as men are learning a lot from them. The way they handle people is so good. I think it has something to do with the fact that some of them are mothers,” he says.

Esther Meyanji, a 23-year-old fine arts graduate, is also trying her luck as a cab captain. Initially, she worked with a non-governmental organisation, producing graphic designs to help the group with advocacy. But, “They (AfriCar) were interested in lady cab drivers, and also I liked the fact that they were diversifying that area of employment,” she said.

“‘I can’t believe you are driving a cab,’ my friends told me when I broke the news. But my parents were OK…Sometimes it gets really tiring, but it’s OK.”

Every year, thousands of students graduate from Uganda’s 15 universities. They enter an economy which is growing briskly: the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa puts Uganda’s growth for 2001/2002 at 6.2 percent. However, relatively few “white collar” jobs are being created.

Bobby Namiti, a business manager at AfriCar, says the company provides opportunities for people who might feel frustrated in this climate.

“One of the things we tell them when they are being interviewed is that much as they are now cab captains, there are plenty of other jobs (higher up in) the organisation that they can later take up.”

Margaret Isiko is already looking ahead. “We are pioneer employees in this company. So definitely, we will go on climbing the ladder. And I believe that two or three years from now, I will become a manager. This job is giving us a chance to become big people in future,” she says.

Adds Esther Meyanji: “I do not think this is going to be a permanent thing for me. I know the company is going to grow. Maybe I will be taking other positions later.”

Namiti says the firm advertised for female drivers because it thought women should be given a shot in what many consider a “man’s world”.

He notes, “Ladies have good customer service and an instinct to treat people well. So a little training could get them doing something good.” A university degree is required for those who want to join AfriCar.

The firm has, however, had to take into account that female drivers might be more vulnerable than men in certain situations: for their safety, women currently do the day shifts, while men work at night.

Still, this compromise is better than having no women behind the wheel at all.

“Ladies should have courage and do things that men do. If they do not have jobs, what will they eat at home? Let them come out,” says Isiko.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Jan 29 2004 (IPS)

Martin Oketch, 13, sat his Primary Leaving Examinations in Uganda late last year. His first choice for secondary education was St Mary’s College Kisubi, one of the country’s best boys’ schools. "I want to become a doctor like Uncle Nathan," he says, pointing to his relative.

However, Martin’s exam results – though good – were just shy of the grades needed to gain admission to Kisubi.

He was just one casualty of an increasingly fierce competition to get a place in secondary school – this as Uganda’s system of universal primary education (UPE) yields record numbers of primary school graduates. Some claim that the system, laudable as it is, has become a victim of its own success.

Selections for secondary school took place this week. Those children who, like Martin, were unable to get a place at the schools of their choice may join vocational training institutions or private schools. But, others are almost certain to drop out altogether.

UPE was introduced in Uganda in 1997. When the programme started, there were 5,303,564 primary school pupils in the country. By 2003, that figure had risen to well over seven million. However, a matching system of universal secondary education has yet to be put in place.

Last year, 406,503 pupils registered for the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), of which 80 percent passed.

But, according to the Ministry of Education, there are only about 224,000 vacancies at government high schools. (No figures could be obtained for the number of places available at private schools.) As a result, over 100,000 candidates who successfully sat the 2003 PLE failed to get into secondary school.

Officials are now looking at encouraging high schools to increase the number of students they admit, perhaps even doubling the number of pupils in classes.

A spokesman for the Education Ministry, Aggrey Kibenge, says, "Of course, the Ministry has recognised the cry of the parents that secondary education is getting out of reach."

Even with the best will in the world, however, the government will face daunting challenges in dealing with this problem.

Over 65 percent of the education budget is already devoted to pre-primary and primary schooling – and even this doesn’t meet all the demands placed on the sector. Pupil-teacher ratios are still at an average of 55 to one. While this is a far cry from the 600 to one ratio that prevailed in certain regions during earlier years, it’s still not ideal.

"Our target is to realise 40 to 50 pupils per teacher. That can assure us of some quality," Kibenge told IPS.

"So for the moment, parents will have to continue carrying the burden of providing for their children at secondary level," he added.

While certain critics view UPE as failed venture, one of the architects of the programme – Kampala-based education consultant Fagil Mande – disagrees. Mande chaired the UPE implementation committee in 1997.

"As a third world country, we cannot afford to have everything in place before we make a jump," he told IPS.

"We must also not think that everybody has to go to secondary school. The purpose of UPE was to get a population that can read and write, and not to send all children to secondary."

Mande contends that the concept of what constitutes a good secondary education in Uganda needs to be expanded, to include a greater emphasis on vocational training.

"We have had an education system where up to now we are still producing white-collar job graduates," he notes, even though "The industrial base of Uganda now is standing on furniture, metal work, brick making, electrical wiring, building and the like."

To a certain extent, government has already recognised this discrepancy.

Last year, it opened a number of vocational education institutions known as "Community Polytechnics" in a bid to reduce the number of drop outs. Thirty such institutions were planned, of which 16 have been built.

However, public perceptions about the status of vocational schools will have to be changed.

While technical schools offer courses in tailoring, motor mechanics, carpentry, brick laying and cookery, many people still believe that a traditional secondary school education, with its promise of a white-collar job, is best. Vocational schools, they say, are for those who simply couldn’t make the grade elsewhere.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
JINJA, Uganda, Jan 20 2004 (IPS)

Courage, patience and determination will be the order of the day during the next eight months for seven rafters who are tackling Africa’s fabled Nile River.

Team leader Henry Coetzee has joined forces with John Dahl, Thomas Madsen, Pete Meredith, Bingo Small, Ian Clarke and Natalie McComb to navigate the whole length of the river – something that has not been tried for 30 years.

The “Settle the Nile” expedition will take the rafters from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, through Uganda, Sudan and Egypt: a journey of 6,690 kilometres. The Nile is the world’s longest river.

“Originally, the idea came about as we were sitting at the Nile Resort Camp site,” said McComb.

“One evening, we were sitting there saying, ‘Why has nobody…gone down the Nile yet, (when) we are on this river every day? Let’s do it! Let’s do it!’.”

While several companies have provided support for the trip, the main sponsor is CARE – an international humanitarian organisation which has programmes in over 60 countries.

Phil Vernon, CARE’s Country Director in Uganda, says the expedition will aim to highlight some of the issues that entrench poverty in countries which the Nile flows through.

“Number one among these is the persistent conflicts, which prevent stability and growth of the economy – and the realisation of human potential,” Vernon said.

En route, the rafters will meet the representatives of several communities that are receiving assistance from CARE and other aid groups. These include fishermen and women at Lake Kyoga in Uganda, Dinka farmers in southern Sudan, and people in the Sudanese capital – Khartoum – who were forced to flee their homes by decades of fighting in the East African country.

“As the rafters are making a film documentary, and will be generating a lot of publicity for their adventure, we wanted to highlight the problems faced by these poor people – as well as some of the solutions which poor communities are finding for their problems,” said Vernon.

The expedition, which took about nine months to organise, received a jolly send-off over the weekend – with friends and family gathering at the “Source of the Nile Gardens” in Uganda’s eastern town of Jinja to bid farewell to the team.

South Africa’s High Commissioner to Uganda, Bavumile Vilakazi, was on hand to see his countryman Henry Coetzee off, and also gave the rafters a South African flag to take along with them.

Between them, the team members have over 50 years experience in white water rafting. But, Pete Meredith says this doesn’t mean that they’ll be tackling every rapid they encounter in their two boats.

“Some that are “runnable”, we shall run them. Some of them are going to be too big and too difficult – there is a big risk of being killed – so we shall just walk round those ones,” he told IPS.

“It’s going to take anywhere between six to nine months, as there are several factors that could change the timing, ” he said, adding “I hope to have a lot of fun. That is what it’s all about.”

Ian Clarke, who works at Kampala’s International Hospital, will be serving as the team doctor. For him, the trip is also providing an opportunity to carry out research on tropical diseases along the Nile.

Natalie McComb, the only woman on the expedition, has been in charge of organising logistics for the journey. As she is also an engineer, she will be taking care of electronic equipment like cameras and satellite phones for the duration of the trip.

“I hope in some small way we can impart a message of peace to the people that we see,” she said.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Nov 25 2003 (IPS)

Fashion capitals of the world: New York, London, Paris…Kampala? Well, if Santa Anzo has anything to do with this, it’ll only be a matter of time.

She is the brains behind the first-ever Uganda Fashion Week, which wrapped up this weekend in the country’s capital. The event, inspired by fashion weeks held elsewhere in the world, attracted 30 exhibitors – of whom all but three were women.

As Anzo tells it, the idea for the four-day show came to her two years ago – but it wasn’t until this year that she could implement it. Her attendance at Kenya Fashion Week, in June, helped stiffen her resolve to get a Ugandan equivalent up-and-running.

"We should have been there to participate," says Anzo. "I was embarrassed, and thought I should do something about it."

Markets in Kampala and elsewhere are currently inundated with imported fabrics and accessories. Local designers struggle to find the funding that would allow them to set up their own companies, and this translates into a general lack of motivation in the fashion sector.

Uganda Fashion Week is intended to change all that by giving exposure to local designers and models, and encouraging the use of fabrics that are made in the country.

"We hope this event can…encourage creativity, and personal initiative as a tool to create more employment opportunities and eliminate job-seeking tendencies," says Anzo. "I (think) we have so much talent in Uganda, and I don’t think the government is doing much in that area (of fashion)."

When she started tackling the project in earnest, Anzo didn’t expect more than 10 exhibitors to sign up. "Even when I went out for sponsorship, people just laughed and said ‘There are no fashion designers in Uganda’,"she recalls.

But, the French embassy stepped in to help, and the response from designers was overwhelming – no small achievement, given that each exhibitor was obliged to present at least 30 different designs.

Damalie Etidau, Director of the Marantha School of Fashion Design in Kampala, was one of those whose work was on show. "The exhibition was an eye-opener…Ugandans should take time to know what kind of standards our designers (have)…Now we are receiving many calls from people, all asking to join the college," she says.

Her words were echoed by Angella Kyomukama, of Glamour Hats: "Although it was the first time for such an event, all the designers have benefited. We are going to work at making it better next year. I think now, we have showed what we can do with our talents."

While the emphasis was clearly on local talent, designers from further afield also made the journey to Kampala – including Senegal’s Oumou Sy and Mustafa Husanali from Tanzania. The exhibition is intended to become an annual event.

Fashion Week has made Santa Anzo the darling of Uganda’s newspapers, and radio and television stations – something assisted, in no small part, by her history.

While she currently heads her own fashion consultancy, Anzo started her working life as a waitress in a Kampala casino – and she has also worked as a sales assistant in a bakery. None of these jobs were in the least glamorous, but she needed the work.

"I did not have the guts to ask my parents for assistance. My father had just retired from the civil service and was heading for the village in Moyo district. I just thought I had to stand up, do it for myself," she says.

Setting up the consultancy presented its own challenges, especially in a society where women entrepreneurs are the exception – not the rule. "But, I had to forget that I was a young woman," says Anzo. "If I kept thinking I was a woman, then I would need a shoulder to cry on all the time, asking for help, protection – and become dependent."

Her strategy for success even included a name change. Santa’s original surname is Anzoyo which – in the dialect of the northern Madi tribe – means frustration, depression and unhappiness. Anzo, on the other hand, means happiness, success and prosperity.

"The names from northern Uganda are very negative," says Anzo. "Someone can be named Asilaza, meaning ‘heartache’ or Atuku meaning ‘I will never prosper’. We have names that (refer to) poverty, laziness, oppression and depression. Some names even call for infertility."

"My children will never be called by such names and I have told members of my family to shun them too," Anzo adds.

Uganda Fashion Week 2003 was opened by Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi, on behalf of Vice President Gilbert Bukenya. If Santa Anzo has her way, no-one less than the President himself will be cutting the red ribbon come 2004.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Nov 4 2003 (IPS)

The pictures of flying bullets, burning houses, dead bodies and fleeing villagers, show just how Uganda’s 17-year-old conflict has become part of the children in the north of the country.

With just a pencil and a few crayons, the 50 paintings the children have drawn create the picture of a generation that has never known peace.

The drawings, including the portrait of the dreadlocked rebel leader Joseph Kony, were sponsored by the Belgian Embassy for the school children in the war-torn northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Lira.

The exhibition, titled "Towards a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence in Northern Uganda", was organised by ‘Uganda Art for Peace’, a non-governmental organisation.

Opening the exhibition at the University of Makerere’s Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art in Kampala on Oct. 23, the Belgian Ambassador, Koenraad Adam said art was one way the children were using to express themselves.

The rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been fighting the government of President Yoweri Museveni since 1986. The group, led by Kony, is known for its penchant for killing, abductions, and cutting off victims’ lips, ears, noses, arms, and legs.

No one has any idea about the size of the LRA, but various sources put the figure of the rebel army to around 6,000.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says over 10,000 children have been abducted since 1986. A July 2002 report by an international relief agency, ‘World Vision’ said over 5,000 children had been abducted to become child soldiers in the rebel army in the past year.

The war has also led to the displacement of over 1.2 million people into Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps, where women and children below 18 make up over 70 percent of the population.

The ‘World Vision’ has a centre in Gulu to rehabilitate former abducted children. More than 6,000 children have passed through this institution, known as the ‘Uganda Children Of War’ rehabilitation centre, since it opened in 1995.

"These children have lost their self-esteem, are haunted by inferiority complex and face the uncertainty of the community’s reaction toward them," a report from the centre says.

Young girls and women have been raped, defiled and forced into marriages by the rebels. Some have been used as porters, cooks and domestic workers, with the weak ones being killed along the way to southern Sudan, where the rebels have bases.

The war has now spread to Soroti, eastern Uganda, prompting president Museveni, who has been insisting on military solution, to pitch camp there.

The children believe talks are the only solution to the conflict. This message is very clear in the award winning exhibition, ‘Stop The War’, by Peter Oloya. He uses mahogany to make an AK-47 assault weapon. Placing it on a wide wooden board, Oloya cuts the gun into three pieces using a saw. Above the gun is a hammer, pulling out the metallic parts of the weapon.

Oloya says the AK-47 is the gun that is destroying Africa. "I look at this weapon as the virus in Africa, deadly than the HIV virus," he says.

"I use the AK-47 image because it is the most common gun used in Uganda. I believe that 75 percent of our problems, both past and present are due to this gun," he says.

His colleague, Stephen Oketa uses watercolours in ‘What Is Impossible’ to show how two sworn enemies can compromise: these enemies are a dog and a cat eating in the same plate. "These animals always live side by side as non-compromising enemies. The apex of their disagreement is usually in the presence of a meal. If the food is enough for both of them, they eat it without fighting.

"If a dog and a cat can eat in the same plate, then why is it impossible to find a solution to the conflict in the north?" Oketa asks.

Another painting, ‘Help My Generation To Survive’, by Susan Namiiro, shows the pain of a young woman in the war-torn north, with her lips chopped off by the rebels. This happens when civilians refuse to pass information.

In the same painting, a young boy limps with a walking stick; his leg has been amputated after stepping on a landmine. Namiiro uses brown and red colours in the background to show the devastation caused by the war in the north.

"The land is on fire," she explains, referring to the brown and red colours in her painting.

Not all is doomed, however. There is a ray of hope, somewhere. In ‘The Storm Is Over’ government soldiers and rebels meet by the river. They are shaking hands and dancing. Rebel leader, Kony is waving a white flag, a sign of surrender. The civilians in the background are cheering. Everybody is happy. The war is over. "I believe that dialogue and peace talks can be the best way to end the war," says Ruva Roy Collins, the painter.

In Moses Bahutu’s ‘We Want Peace Not War’, president Museveni shakes hands with Kony, a cultist whose preaching mingle Christian fundamentalism with African traditional religion. The warm handshake and the smiles on their faces show that some day, peace will prevail.

"Putting Museveni and Kony in the middle of the paintings shows that both men are at the centre of the conflict," Bahatu says.

"We are looking at arts as the best way to communicate to all people whether they are literate or illiterate. Arts is a universal language that can be understood by almost everybody," says Dan Tumusiime, the curator of the exhibition. "We hope to use art to promote peace and non-violence."

At the opening of the exhibition, a large blank peace mural was set up for guests to paint something on it. The mural, together with the guest book, will be handed to Kony and to the government.

"We donated the mural to the government peace team, to tell them that what they are doing (peace talks) is the best thing," Tumusiime says.

The exhibition will be taken to Gulu in December and Belgium next year.

Not everyone, however, believes that the exhibition will lead to the end of the war in the north. "These people just decided to paint a few pictures because they want to pass their exams. Others wanted to win prizes. How can paintings convince Kony to stop fighting," says 24-year-old Jacinta Kakayi, an accountant.

Others agree. "The artwork is good. But I am sure that’s where the journey’s going to end; on the wall," says Julius Arinaitwe, a university student.

Tumusiime does not blame those who think that the exhibition is toothless.

"The whole concept of arts and culture is new in Uganda. That is why few people believe that art can be used as an instrument of peace," he says.

"If you can use art, designs and colours to advertise a mobile phone, why can’t we use that same art to promote peace?" Tumusiime asks. "We have a duty to promote art and peace. Art is everywhere in life. We cannot hide it."

Since every journey begins with the first step, so maybe with time, Tumusiime’s concept of art for peace will produce results that many Ugandans will be proud of.

Excerpt:

By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 27 2003 (IPS)

Ugandan Magdalena Achero (not her real name) is a bitter woman. As a school teacher, in a country which has been hailed as a beacon of hope for people living with HIV/AIDS, she has experienced discrimination firsthand.

Last month she received a discouraging message from the local education officer.

"The District Education Officer said, since everyone in the district knew my HIV status, he could not post me to any school. He said I should look for a school that would accept me, and convince the community to tolerate me, then go back to his office for posting or transfer to that school," she says.

Achero, an AIDS campaigner, from the eastern district of Tororo, has nowhere to complain, since Uganda has no policy, or law, proscribing discrimination on grounds of HIV/AIDS.

Achero’s remarks were narrated by Christine Aguti Kudinet of ‘The AIDS Support Organisation’ (TASO) during a preparation meeting Oct. 25, a day before the opening of the 11th ‘International Conference for People Having HIV/AIDS’ in the capital, Kampala.

The five-day gathering, organised by ‘Health Rights Action Group’ (HAG), has attracted 800 delegates, 200 of whom are from Uganda.

Kudinet, who is also HIV-positive, regrets that "some health workers (in her district) are denying services to people living with AIDS, especially women in labour".

Some are left lying in beds without treatment, and discharged prematurely, she says.

Kudinet, a member of ‘People Living With HIV/AIDS’, says children are also sometimes discontinued from their studies because the schools "cannot waste money on a dying person".

"There is also denial to inheritance rights to suspected HIV-positive widows and children because they think they will die soon," she says.

"After learning that you are HIV positive, chances of upgrading or training on the job are limited and accessing loans is also hard because they think you will die before paying the loans," Kudinet adds.

Although Uganda has been recognised as ‘the first African country to have subdued a major HIV/AIDS epidemic’, it has no coherent policies or laws that protect people living with HIV/AIDS from discrimination and stigmatisation.

Uganda has reduced HIV infection rate to five percent, the most dramatic decline in the world.

A recent study, ‘The Status of Human Rights Among People Having AIDS in Uganda And Their Involvement In Initiatives Targeting Communities’, says people living with the virus are being denied "a right to education, healthcare, gainful employment, property ownership, and sexual and reproductive rights, right to privacy and right to non-discrimination".

"The women were found to be more prone to human rights abuse than the men," the report says.

The report, compiled by ‘Health Right Action Group’, a local non-governmental organisation, also found that limited information and knowledge about HIV/AIDS and human rights were provided to the public. "More educated respondents knew more, and indeed men knew more than women, while the illiterate/less educated knew less," it said.

"Therefore, there is need for increased education about human rights to both people living with HIV/AIDS and the community. Programmes targeting women and children must be put in place. There is also need to address the special needs of the youth so that they can control their sexuality to avoid infection," says George Muwanguzi, a lawyer and HIV/AIDS activist.

Uganda has over 1.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS. Since the first AIDS case was diagnosed 20 years ago, over one million people have died of the disease, with over 80,000 of them being children.

Even with a fall in price of the anti-retroviral drugs from 1,000 U.S. dollars in the early 1990s to as little as 30 U.S. dollars today, 120,000-150,000 people remain in urgent need of treatment, as only 15,000 of these have access to the drugs, in a country where 90 percent of the population live below poverty line of one U.S. dollar a day.

"The poor suffer more because they do not have the money," Muwanguzi argues.

Although there is no official workplace policy on HIV/AIDS, some private employers have been trying to develop their own policies to keep their workers healthy.

For Standard Chartered Bank, a policy on HIV/AIDS was developed in 1998 and provision of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to their staff started this year after realising that the epidemic was having a very big impact on their staff.

"The bank considers that it has a corporate social responsibility to support HIV/AIDS preventive efforts and to protect the basic human rights of those who in the work place are HIV positive," says Lawrence Nsubuga of the Standard Bank. "Employees are critical to the success of our business. We realise that loss of an employee is not only a personal and family tragedy, but also a direct loss to the Bank in terms of recruitment, productivity, retraining and other costs."

Information is availed to employees on the pandemic, its magnitude, impact and preventative measures, emphasising non-discriminatory policies, procedures and practises in managing affected individuals.

"The approach to individuals who have HIV/AIDS is the same as those with any other progressive or debilitating illness and with all the support this entails," Nsubuga explains.

The Bank considers medical information very confidential and employees are under no obligation to notify management of their status, but encouraged to establish it in case of need for ARVs, according to him.

"The issue of confidentiality is well addressed and our staffs have gained the confidence in the scheme. Should the test be positive, then the outcome is between the doctor and the patient," Nsubuga explains.

Uganda’s ‘AIDS Control Programme’ (ACP) manager, Dr Elizabeth Madraa told IPS that a national strategic plan to increase access to HIV/AIDS drugs has been set up, and prices of the drugs are expected to drop further. She said 11 referral hospitals stock ARVs, along with 215 other small centres countrywide.

"Now that prices of the drugs have fallen, there is need to train medical personnel on how to administer the drugs," she said.

Madraa said, in the past two-and-a-half years, the number of people accessing the anti-retroviral drugs has risen from 800 to 15,000. "The price has fallen to 50 U.S. dollars and below but that is still not enough for the ordinary Ugandan.

"Our target is that by 2005, we hope to reach 50 percent of the 150,000 in urgent need, and by 2007, we hope to be able to provide access to all. >From the ‘Global Fund for HIV/AIDS’, nine million U.S. dollars and another 62 million U.S. dollars have already been approved for ARVs, and three million U.S. dollars from the ‘World Bank Uganda HIV/AIDS Programme’ will be released soon.

During a July trip to Africa, U.S. president George W. Bush pledged a five-year, 15-billion-U.S.-dollar plan to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa.

According to the UNAIDS progress report, close to 40 percent of countries, including half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, have yet to adopt anti-discrimination legislation to protect people living with HIV/AIDS. "Governments must recognise that developing laws that protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS is essential to an effective response to the epidemic," said Ben Plumley of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, over 29 million live in sub-Saharan Africa.

John Rwomshana of the ‘Uganda AIDS Commission’ says he is praying that a national policy against discrimination is released soon so that people like Achero will benefit.

"Action, not lip service, is urgently needed if some 8,700 people are to stop dying each day of HIV/AIDS (in Uganda) due to lack of (ARV) therapy," said Rubaramira Ruranga, founder of National Guidance and Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

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By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 21 2003 (IPS)

Uganda’s health officials should heave a sigh of relief following ‘successful’ measles immunisation campaigns, which targeted 12.7 million children.

The campaign, which was conducted Oct. 15-19, ran into some problems.

In the western district of Mbarara some pupils reportedly ran out of the classroom and hid in mango trees when the vaccines arrived.

In the eastern district of Kayunga, a local councillor was beaten by her husband for taking their 10-year old daughter for immunisation.

Local newspapers said Susan Mutoonyi, 40, was admitted to Kayunga Hospital in a critical condition after her husband, John Mukabile allegedly beat her for taking Jane Nabwiso for vaccination. These protests had their origins in 1989 when a consignment of expired measles vaccines was unintentionally administered on children. Led by former Prime Minister Samson Kisekka, the campaign left some children develop abnormalities like skin rushes and hearing impairments. Kisekka later apologised for the incidence.

But the memory seems fresh in some minds over a decade later.

To convince the public that the vaccine was safe, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative Oladipo Walker and officials from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) made it a point to be the first to take their children for vaccination. Local women doctors also took it upon themselves to immunise their children as proof that all was well.

In his state address to the nation, minister of health Jim Muhwezi assured Ugandans that the vaccine was safe. "The main objective of the strategy is to reduce morbidity, mortality and disability due to measles," said Muhwezi.

Every year, 60,000 children suffer from measles countrywide, with 3,000 deaths. Some 93 percent of these cases occur among children below 15 years and 7 percent among children above 15 years, he said.

Uganda’s ministry of health has been providing measles immunisation in the last 20 years through the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation (UNEPI). Even with a vaccine offered by the health delivery systems, measles infection has been rated the 4th commonest cause of illness in Uganda. This is due to low routine immunisation coverage, which is at 77 percent below the 95 percent coverage required.

Previous campaigns targeted children below five years but they were not effective as they covered only nine percent of the measles burden, Muhwezi said.

Some Ugandans still think a second doze of the vaccine seems suspicious and unnecessary.

"I would not immunise my child with the measles vaccine for the second time. He has already been immunised. It would thus be criminal for someone to immunise my child from the school without my consent," said Andrew Ochola, a businessman.

Prior to the exercise, sections of the community, including Members of Parliament asked President Yoweri Museveni ‘to show a good example’ by vaccinating his grandchildren first.

Museveni had come under fire, following a story in the local media that he had spent 180 million U.S. dollars to send his daughter to deliver a baby in Germany using the official presidential jet. In response, Museveni said he did so because he did not trust Ugandan doctors.

"If Museveni does not trust Ugandan doctors, why should we trust these doctors? We, too, want our kids to live," said David Kiddu, 34, a taxi driver.

During the launch of the official campaign in the eastern town of Soroti on Oct. 15, Museveni urged Ugandans to shun ‘saboteurs’ who were against the exercise.

Religious leaders also urged their followers to co-operate. The Queen of Buganda, Sylvia Nagginda had been at the forefront of the campaign. As a respected figurehead in the Baganda community, the largest ethnic group in Uganda, her campaign was expected to yield results.

Deputy local administrator for Kampala, Samuel Mpimbaza Hashaka told IPS that the campaign had gone well in the capital.

The Minister of Gender and Social Development Zoe Bakoko Bakoru, who is also a nurse, took park in vaccinating the children at various centres. "Some of the children aged between 10 and 15 were even coming by themselves and were excited. The turn-up had been overwhelming and the parents had been co-operative," Hashaka said.

Paul Kagwa, of the ministry of health, said rebel-infested northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Padyer also had good responses in spite of insecurity there.

"These districts scored very high. In these areas, the people are living in Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps, so it’s easier to mobilise them," he said.

People from neighbouring Kenya, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Uganda also benefited from the immunisation. "Disease has no boundary," Kagwa said.

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By Evelyn Kiapi
KAMPALA, Oct 14 2003 (IPS)

For 17 years, the government of President Yoweri Museveni has failed to crush the rebellion in northern Uganda, which has displaced up to a million people.

There are now growing signs that peace talks are being considered as an option.

These signs began emerging during a celebration to mark Uganda’s independence on Oct. 9. Addressing the nation, president Museveni said he had not given up on talking to the rebels and that he considered peace talks as a way to end the conflict, but only if the rebels would renounce violence. “I am open and ready to talk (to the rebels) to enable them come out,” he said.

Museveni, who also made similar remarks to Commonwealth Gen-Sec. Don McKinnon Monday, urged the rebels to take advantage of the year-old amnesty, which expires in December.

McKinnon, in Uganda on the second-leg of a four-nation African tour ahead of a December Commonwealth summit in Nigeria, said Museveni gave him “the impression that things were looking a lot better” in northern Uganda.

Most Ugandans are tired of the war between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel movement known for cutting the ears and lips of villagers and abducting children for use as sex slaves and child soldiers.

The conflict, which was initially regarded as a northern problem, has affected virtually every Ugandan.

Government’s military expenditure has steadily been growing, overshadowing provisions for health, education and social services. Resources have been diverted to pay for the war.

A recent report said the social and economic costs of the conflict in the north have been huge. Up to 100 million U.S. dollars, or 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), has been lost to the Ugandan economy annually – affecting the development of an entire nation, said the report.

The report was commission by the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda, a coalition of more than 40 local and international non-governmental organisations.

Immediately after the report was published, president Museveni rejected peace talks as a way of solving the conflict. He said he did not believe in dialogue, describing the LRA, among other things, as “empty headed criminals”.

Museveni’s decision to use military options rather than dialogue has dragged the war for 17 years, resulting in the abduction of over 12,000 children, as well as in the killing and raping of thousands of villagers. It has also created a humanitarian crisis, with over 800,000 people from the northern districts of Kitgum, Gulu and Padyer living in internally displaced people’s camps.

Since Mar., hundreds of children have become what has been described as ‘night commuters’, spending their nights in the streets of the main northern town of Gulu in fear of rebel attacks.

In Mar. last year, Museveni even pitched camp in Gulu and an ‘Operation Iron Fist’ launched Mar. 2002 in collaboration with the Sudan government to wipe out the rebels, who have military bases in southern Sudan.

Museveni failed. The war has now moved to eastern Uganda.

Museveni’s decision to talk peace comes after pressures from both local and international communities including donor countries like Denmark, the United States and Germany.

In August last year, he appointed a Presidential Peace Team (PPT), which consisted of Members of Parliament from the affected region. Museveni expressed his willingness to engage in direct negotiations and declare a ceasefire provided certain conditions were met. Since then, the PPT, as well as some government officials, has been able to talk to the rebels by telephone.

Unfortunately, the team has not made much progress, especially after the sacking early this year of its chairperson Eriya Kategaya (who was Minister of Internal affairs) for openly opposing President Museveni’s decision to stand for a third term contrary to Uganda’s constitution. A new chairperson has not yet been appointed to replace Kategaya.

Santa Okot, Member of Parliament from Padyer, told IPS by telephone that she was glad to hear that Museveni still wanted to talk peace. “I hope the President’s comments were from the bottom of his heart,” she said.

Santa, who is also a member of PPT, said: “We are not making any progress because the (PPT) chairman (Kategaya) is no longer in the office. Right now, there is nothing much to do,” she said.

Okot urged Museveni to invite international representatives to join the peace team and allow enough time for the team to negotiate peace. “When we opt for peace, it should not be a rushed thing. It takes a while,” she said.

Okot believes Museveni’s decision to end the amnesty in Dec. would destabilise the peace process.

“The president says amnesty ends in December. Then what happens next, since negotiations have not started? This would only make the rebels suspicious. The amnesty should have no time limit,” she said.

And will the rebels agree to talk peace? “We just have to try. We cannot assume that they (rebels) are not willing,” she said.

Although several attempts have been made to end the conflict since 1986, the government and rebels have not met face-to-face. There have been some informal contacts between religious and LRA commanders in the bush.

For more than a decade, Acholi leaders have advocated a peaceful solution to the conflict in their region.

The Acholi people, who form the bulk of the LRA, including its enigmatic leader Joseph Kony, straddle the Sudan/Uganda border. Many Acholi leaders have persuaded a number of rebels out of the bush, undertaking great personal risks.

Peace groups like Kacoke Madit, a non-profit making forum, aims at identifying and implementing practical initiatives to end the conflict in northern Uganda by peaceful means. Formed in 1996 by Acholi people of northern Uganda living in the Diaspora, it aims to curb the escalation of the armed conflict affecting the districts of Kitgum and Gulu. It is now a worldwide network.

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