Women emancipation still limited

By John Agaba

KAMPALA - As the country prepares to mark the International Women’s Day tomorrow [Friday], Ugandans have been called to be mindful of the struggles affecting women, especially the rural working woman.

Minister for gender, labour, and social development, John Nasasira, said women continue to struggle especially against violence meted against them usually by their spouses.

Ahead of Friday’s public holiday, the minister told a press conference that sexual and gender-based violence were the commonest forms of injustice women suffer.

The main celebrations will be held in Nakasongola district under the theme: Gender agenda—connecting grass root women to development.

Nasasira emphasized that much as the country has attained achievements in the attempt to bring harmony between man and woman like the gender-based affirmative actions and the fact that today many a girl child are going to school, total emancipation of the woman remains limited.

“There are some men who are so patriarchal. They don’t accept anything their women say.

“They embark on a project even if it is going to affect the whole family minus discussing the matter with the woman and they hope she will just go with what they have decided,” he said.

 “These are things that have to change if we are to have batter relationships and stable families and less violence against women.”

According to a 2011 joint study by Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention and Makerere University Economic Policy Research Centre, approximately 60% of families in Uganda married or cohabiting are experiencing violence, whether sexual or gender-based.

The minister said that the marriage and divorce bill that presently topical in the public was intended to harmonize marriages.

“We have some cases where a man dies and the in-laws, the parents of the man, decide to chase the woman away from the home [arguing] that she doesn’t belong to the family. They even take away her children.”

“The bill is intended to specify the rights of people in marriage; that should anything happen, maybe the man dies or the marriage fails then people know what their rights are,” said Nasasira.