By Gloria Nakajubi

KAMPALA - Judge Julia Sebutinde has cautioned Ugandan women against involving themselves in any acts of corruption.

A judge on the International Court of Justice, the Ugandan jurist told women to keep a distance from corrupt tendencies in their various offices and capacities of service.

She said that since women today are taking up various positions in the field of service, they can easily be susceptible to the temptations that come along with holding offices of responsibility.

When lured into corruption-related misdeeds, she said, women become a part of the corruption rot in the country.

She sees women as mothers who should look to portraying the acceptable values to their children if the future generation is to be corruption free.

“It is not academic, career achievements or trophies that count when a mother passes on, but the kind of children she has raised is what does.”

True, as in contemporary society, a child’s success or failure is always pointed to his upbringing.

The jurist’s call comes in the wake of various corruption investigations presently being carried out in the Parliament and Police with a number of public servants linked to mismanagement of taxpayers’ money.

Sebutinde, the first African woman to sit on the World Court, was speaking at a Women’s Day banquet organized by the Business Day Communications at the Serena Hotel in Kampala this week.

The function was also supported by the Ministry of Gender and Cultural Issues.

Trade and industry minister Amelia Kyambadde, also in attendance, urged all emancipated women to help the rural poor women who are less privileged.

“It doesn’t make a difference if we say we have been emancipated yet there is a woman in rural Uganda that cannot access health services and ends up dying in the hands of traditional birth attendants,” she reasoned.

She urged all the privileged women in urban area to find a way of helping the rural poor woman improve their lives especially by empowering them with skills and guidance because most of them lack knowledge and information.

“In every position a woman should use it as a platform to improve the life of the woman who is less privileged other than blocking them.”

During the function 50 goats were handed over to women in the districts of Amuria,Gulu and Mayuge to help boost their incomes.

Despite the spirited drive towards women emancipation in Uganda today, there still remains a gendered divide.

In most parts of the country, women remain submissive to men and have to tolerate roles like housekeeping, child rearing, fetching water, cooking, among others. But while some women have come out strongly in the open against such pressure, others have become accustomed to being treated inferior to men.

But corruption remains deeply rooted in the country’s system, with men at the forefront of most of the corruption cases.