Give the Movement credit over women emancipation

Jan 30, 2001

Honourable Winnie Byanyima and Beti Kamya should give credit where it is due.

By Mary Karooro Okurut Honourable Winnie Byanyima and Beti Kamya should give credit where it is due. I am talking about the views of the two ladies on the achievements of women under President Yoweri Museveni. Kamya in her article of January 24 stated: "Incidentally, have Ugandans not heard that the women's emancipation movement...are global trends and not strictly Museveni's initiatives?" How many countries have signed the 1981 CEDOW (Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women) but have not gone ahead to enforce it? Global trends are one thing but there has to be a fertile and conducive political environment for them to be enforced in any country. Because there has been political will under Museveni's administration to advance the women's cause, a lot has been achieved. We have affirmative action, which came with the NRM. You cannot take this away from Museveni because he was the leader. When you are the leader, successes are traced to you because you are incharge. If the government was unwilling, it would have refused affirmative action. Kamya, there is no official affirmative action in Kenya and Tanzania, to take two of our neighbouring countries. Ours is in the constitution, and gender balance is a policy. If the enhancement of women is a global thing, is there any other country in Africa where we have women at all policy making levels? Uganda is the envy of most African countries in the sphere of women's advancement. The political will has made society responsive to women. Even women Parliamentarians who have made it on the general ticket, were able to make it because an affirmative environment has been created. Hon. Byanyima was quoted: "The empowerment of women that Museveni boasts of was not initiated by the President but by the Constituent Assembly delegates." (The Monitor January 29) Can the Honourable Byanyima deny that the action of bringing so many women to the Constituent Assembly (CA) was because of the Movement under the leadership of Museveni? If the affirmative action of every district bringing in a woman delegate had not been in place, how many women would have been in the CA? Only those who came on the direct ticket. And suppose there were only eight women in the CA, would they have had that push to put women's issues on the agenda? Government gave women the framework and the rationale was for women to speak for themselves like the army, people with disabilities, the workers, among others. My appeal to leaders like Hon. Byanyima in the course of their politicking, is, give credit where it is due. Ends

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