Matembe warns on transition
May 09, 2004
THE Woman MP for Mbarara district, Miria Matembe, has advised women to make clear their demands as the country moves from the Movement to multiparty system.
By James Bakunzi
THE Woman MP for Mbarara district, Miria Matembe, has advised women to make clear their demands as the country moves from the Movement to multiparty system.
Matembe said women stood to lose the gains they had already achieved if they do not aggressively make their demands.
She was presenting a paper entitled women activism in Uganda: Challenges and the way forward at the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) meeting at Kamwokya recently.
“We must rise up and engage in the transition process to ensure that political organisations adhere to the integration of the principle of affirmative action for all marginalised groups,†she said.
Matembe said political parties must ensure that women participate fully at all levels in conceptualisation, decision making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development policies and programmes.
Matembe said women were in danger of being patronised within the transition process.
“The Government has always wanted to patronise women by telling them that they have forgotten where they were brought from, as if they did us a favour,†she said.
She urged women to be more aggressive now than ever before. “We should not want to be given but must get up and take our rightful position,†she advised.
She said though government had corrected the historical mistake that involve suppressing and denying women their rightful place in society, it has done it out of the efforts and contribution of women who went to the bush and those who had bought women’s issues to the limelight before that.
Ends
THE Woman MP for Mbarara district, Miria Matembe, has advised women to make clear their demands as the country moves from the Movement to multiparty system.
Matembe said women stood to lose the gains they had already achieved if they do not aggressively make their demands.
She was presenting a paper entitled women activism in Uganda: Challenges and the way forward at the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) meeting at Kamwokya recently.
“We must rise up and engage in the transition process to ensure that political organisations adhere to the integration of the principle of affirmative action for all marginalised groups,†she said.
Matembe said political parties must ensure that women participate fully at all levels in conceptualisation, decision making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development policies and programmes.
Matembe said women were in danger of being patronised within the transition process.
“The Government has always wanted to patronise women by telling them that they have forgotten where they were brought from, as if they did us a favour,†she said.
She urged women to be more aggressive now than ever before. “We should not want to be given but must get up and take our rightful position,†she advised.
She said though government had corrected the historical mistake that involve suppressing and denying women their rightful place in society, it has done it out of the efforts and contribution of women who went to the bush and those who had bought women’s issues to the limelight before that.
Ends