UGANDA GOVERNMENT ADVISED ON EFFECTIVE PROCESS ON WOMEN EMANCIPATION

Jane Godia, Director for Africa, Women in News, Kenya

Photo by : WAN (IFRA)

By Rose Kasigwa

UGANDA GOVERNMENT ADVISED ON EFFECTIVE PROCESS ON WOMEN EMANCIPATION

As Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) March 8, 2025, with a theme “Accelerate Action”, women at the grassroots say many women in the country continue to fight for space.

Various women in different sectors especially in rural areas including those in private businesses like street vendors, farmers, market vendors, traders in general merchandise and mining among other sectors used the opportunity of women’s day to take stock of the challenges they are facing calling upon leaders to take urgent action to address them.

Several women say that much as government has put in place several interventions to uplift their quality of lives such as Parish Development Model funds (PDM) program, Women Entrepreneurship Funds, Grow money among many other programs, most women especially in rural areas have had a raw deal citing discrimination, corruption and luck of collateral like land tittles to access such money especially from the banks. Which they say have left most of them financially incapacitated.

Women further continue to decry discrimination in salary payments especially where their male counterparts having the same qualifications and doing the same kind of work are paid more.

Women also pointed out a challenge of sexual harassment in offices where bosses request for sexual favors to give those promotions, good assignments and other job favors.

Women also pointed out a challenge of working in un conducive environments especially breastfeeding mothers where they luck spaces to breast feed babies to enable them to continue with work throughout the day which affect their production.

The chairperson of Uganda Women Parliamentary Association and also Tororo district woman mp, Sarah opendi commends government of Uganda for creating space for women especially in parliament. She notes with concern that there are only 15 women in Uganda parliament representing constituencies and 146 women representing districts,  which increased number she attributes and commends  government for creating space for the women.

Opendi however, says that women continue to struggle for space especially when it comes to government taking decisions. “Many times when decisions are made they do not consider a gender lense like in  recent promotion of police officers  where only men were promoted.” Said  Opendi. She said she has asked the Equal Opportunities Commission whose report parliament base to make decisions to look at the matter with a keen eye.

Flavia Kalule,  woman member of parliament for Kasanda district  and a member of opposition  political party National Unity Platform (NUP) appreciates government for making an effort to uplift the standards of women in the country through various empowerment programs. She notes that Uganda has done well in meeting the threshold of over 30 percent of women holding leadership positions and many more women are holding various significant economic positions in the private sector.

Kalule however, says that much as a big number of women are holding such big positions in government and private sector the benefits are yet to be felt by the grassroot women. She says that the impact of women in influential positions have not been felt  to improve the livelihood of women and girls especially in rural areas.

“We have women in positions of power but they can’t influence decisions because we are living in  a patriarchal setting.” said Kalule

Kalule noted with concern that Uganda continues to register high cases of Gender Based Violence  cases adding that the problem was worsened  by COVID  19 lock down in 2019 and 2020,  where the country registered the highest  number of G B V cases at  15 percent   the highest number in East Africa.

Kalule says that the gender Based violence has also continued to manifest during elections. She called on government to increase the budget for gender equality to curtail the increasing number of gender based violence cases.

Kalule also voices out that increasing the budget for gender equality will help government to procure sanitary pads for the school going girls that will reduce increasing number of dropouts. She insists that government can still find Shs 42 billion which is required to purchase the sanitary pads adding that this might not be sufficient; however it is a good start.

Jane Godia   Director for Africa, Women in News, Kenya points out the need for governments to have in place a gender policy. Godia confirmed gender discrimination especially in various media houses where female journalists doing the same job are paid less than their male counterparts in newsrooms.

Godia says a Gender Policy should be in line with the human resource policy and should be an official document that is in agreement with the board and senior managers and speaks to the laws of the country and international treaties. 

She says that the Gender Policy will cater for the organization processes, procedures, guidelines and will ensure gender equity is attained.

Godia said that according to a research conducted by Women in News (WIN) in 2020 1 out of 2 women are sexually harassed.

“The problem is women keeping quiet about the issue; your body is your body you should not allow to be touched indiscriminatively.” Said Godia.

Dr. Paulina Chiwangu, UN Women Representative in Uganda says Uganda needs to borrow a leaf from Mexico and Ethiopia. She says that Mexico has established a national institute for women where they have put in place a national fund for Gender equity, the fund is being contributed to by the government and development partners and this is empowering women through different programs.

“Uganda is neighbor to Ethiopia, which has established a one stop centre to address Gender Based Violence if this, is done in Uganda, it can help to address the Gender based violence.”  Said Dr.Chiwangu.

She adds that Uganda has the highest cases of Gender Based Violence in Africa standing at 51 percent as compared to 37 percent in the whole of Africa.

She noted with concern that the one stop centre for Gender Based Violence will help to address similar challenges including offering psycho social support, medical support and also help victims to recover and receive Justice.

The minister for Gender, Labor and Social Development, Betty Amongi in response to addressing the challenges facing women in Uganda said government has made strides to ensure that women throughout the country are empowered through various government programs.

She says with Parish Development model (PDM), Women Entrepreneurship program and Grow funds among many other women programs have helped many women to start up projects that have improved their house hold income and hence improving the living standards.

“Most women are into farming sector and the question is how do we get out of poverty? Can we have a mechanism through which to sell our produce? This is an area that has to be supported.” said Betty Amongi.

Amongi says another area that needs to be   handled is the health of women adding that majority of pregnant women cannot afford mama kits.

Amongi also mentions education.” Education is key we need to sit and look around how learners previously passed, is it the pay? Teacher to pupil ratio? Amongi asked.

The minister also notes, much as government put in place mass enrollment, parents are trying to take their children to private schools to get quality education which area requires support.

Amongi further said another area of concern is freeing of women from a burden of Accessing  water .She says a woman  spends 2 to 3 hours to get  4  Jericans of water  every day  due to long queues at water points  and other challenges which is time consuming.