THE CREAM of the world's womenfolk is taking stock of the lot of women ten years after the pivotal Beijing conference.

The meeting, which ends in New York today, and has been named Beijing+10, is analysing how women have done in the numerous aspirations spelt out a decade ago.

Beijing sought equality, development and peace. Today, the world over, there is more representation of women at the top of the political and professional levels.

Governments are taking women's participation in decision-making more seriously. In Uganda, we see many more women in Parliament and at the lower levels, especially LC1 and II, though professionally, there are not as many women in executive positions as there could be.

At the middle and lower social levels, there are more Ugandan women involved in commerce, be it in vegetable markets or in accessing micro finance credit. This is vital activity, if only because women tend to bear the greater burden of home support and need all the income they can get.

Some progress has been made in health, with dispensaries that double as maternity centres being set up at every sub-county. But many do not have trained personnel to handle emergencies like childbirth.

As a result, maternal mortality is still high. Sexual violence continues at alarming rates, in both rural and urban settings. The woman is still exploited, for their labour, sexually, culturally, and tends to be under-educated.

Yet many of these issues have been raised in the Domestic Relations Bill. This piece of legislation seeks to address critical women's issues like inheritance and property rights, divorce proceedings, cohabitation, and polygamy/monogamy.

This bill has been before Parliament for nearly as long as the Beijing resolutions have been in place. It needs to be expedited if we are to make a real change in the lives of Ugandan women.