- 10 hours ago
The UN calls gender-based violence a global human rights emergency — but in Uganda, it's daily reality. Nearly 95% of women in Uganda have experiencekd violence, perpetrators walk free, and silence is survival.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00This week on the 77% Street Debate.
00:07Some of the ladies, they force us to beat them.
00:10What do you mean they force you? Do they hold your hand and make you slap them?
00:14There's even a belief of I am powerful more than you and therefore I should beat you.
00:18Government has been at the forefront of, you know, victimizing women.
00:23I totally object. Violence against any person is criminal in Uganda.
00:30Hello there, welcome to the 77% Street Debate. My name is Fatou Elika Moulouchi.
00:39Now we are in a country where 95% of women and girls have experienced some form of gender-based violence.
00:45It is Uganda and in this country women and girls are at the center of social and economic life.
00:50Yet almost all of them have experienced either sexual or physical violence.
00:55GBV is a global human rights emergency according to the United Nations.
01:00Most of the Ugandans, a critical issue that they've agreed to on paper.
01:04And I'm going to start with you, Safina. Not only because you are an activist,
01:07but also because you have a personal story in relation to this topic.
01:11I was eight years old, like you mentioned, and this was happening at school.
01:18The teacher who was supposed to take care of us as students, as pupils, was the one who was violating us.
01:26I wasn't the only one. There were other girls that were being victimized by this man.
01:33He didn't face any tangible consequences for his actions.
01:40All they did when one of the kids reported to their parents was his employment was terminated and he was let go of the school.
01:49By the school, they didn't report the matter to police. He wasn't arrested.
01:54Nothing happened to him. I was too scared to, you know, talk about it.
02:00Let me just come to Diane here. Talk to us about your situation, your case.
02:05Well, my experience was more of a financial and emotional abuse with someone who I was in a relationship with.
02:16And he continues to abuse women of my nature up until now.
02:24Did you talk to anyone about it? How was that received?
02:27I did speak to several people, but in Uganda really doesn't help much because men hold the upper hand.
02:40Let me just come to you, Olivia, as well. Is your case similar to her?
02:43Can I say that me and Diana, the same person who violated Diana is the same person who violated me.
02:50And for me, we didn't have a child.
02:53You mean this is the same person who is Diana's abuser? He is also your abuser?
03:01Yes, please.
03:02She mentioned in the Ugandan society nothing gets to be done about it. And that goes for you too. Did you talk about it?
03:08When I talked about it, I found that he was being instead supported than me. I decided to keep quiet.
03:15Men here are taken as, I don't know, even when they violate women, you find they support men.
03:23Kenari, you are a journalist and you also cover GBV cases, but you've come out recently to talk about your own experience with GBV in your marriage. How are you coping?
03:35I mean, just finding help with talking to people who are experienced in this and just also to encourage also men out there to come out and, you know, seek help.
03:47Because as much as I understand today's topic is about gender-based violence against the women, I think on the other side when you flip the coin, there's gender-based violence against the men.
03:56And it's a growing pandemic. So me coming out to speak out was to say, look, when you look at it on the other side, just even to give you statistics, when you have about, for example, in just one single year, 13,000 reported cases of GBV on average every year, you have about 3,000 of those.
04:16That's about 18% men coming out to report cases.
04:20Let me just come to you again, Safina, because in the beginning, I mentioned that you are an activist. Let's talk about some of the perceptions around GBV.
04:27Why do the Ugandan community think this is such a normal practice against women?
04:31It's mostly a cultural and religious thing, which all comes together to be a patriarchal thing.
04:39Women are looked at as subhuman. So if you're subhuman, obviously someone is going to assume that they are above you, and they will victimize you in so many ways, beat you up, rape you, talk to you in a dehumanizing manner, crush your spirit, literally.
05:02And these behaviors are encouraged in a way that, you know, women are meant to be punished so that they are contained in a way.
05:13I just want to come to Caroline. We've heard from some of our survivors who've mentioned economic abuse, but also social abuse.
05:19What are some of the other forms of violence against women or gender-based violence that you have in Uganda?
05:25Well, the sexual and the physical still take lead. However, like this year's theme to end digital violence is to end digital violence against the women.
05:36So with the uprising, the technology, so where most of the people in the uptowns are on the internet, on social media, we've come to realize there's a lot of digital violence. That is the other form of violence.
05:48Let me just come to senior superintendent here. Of course, the police is the first point of contact for crime, but we've heard from what the survivors have said. When they report, nothing happens. Why are perpetrators not brought to book?
06:01Some come to police just to get a reference. Once we enter in our books and give the reporter a reference number, it becomes, at times, for some people, it becomes a bargaining ground.
06:16Cases of sexual abuse, especially. Once an SD reference is got, it will be a bargaining platform for the community to sit between the side of the victim or the survivor and the perpetrator, and they will never come back to police.
06:32Two, the structure or the system shortcomings. For example, police, at times, we are far from where crime happens from. Apart from Kampala, where you are right now, in villages, you find one sub-county has a police post, and the village where a crime has occurred is, for example, 10 kilometers with a very bad road, and the police, at times, doesn't have the means of transport.
07:01To immediately respond.
07:03Let me just come back to you, Caroline. What would you say, in your perspective, as someone who's dealing with GBV survivors, that is the reason why, most times, these cases are not taken further?
07:13I'll give a case in point. There's a time I'd gone for advocacy in Kamocha. It's called TLC. It's a community center that brings together, you know, community people around the place.
07:22And so one of the caretakers showed me a girl that in one of the days they were praying, and the girl said a prayer that I, dear Lord, I pray my dad dies.
07:33And then she was like, oh my God, how would you say such a prayer? And then the child said, because the father beats the mother all the time.
07:40Now, every time they've gone to the police to report the case, he'll be taken inside, and then the next day he'll come back to the same house.
07:47Yes. So she has given up reporting.
07:49So the police doesn't do anything whenever they report the case.
07:52In Uganda, we call it Gambanogu.
07:55Like a...
07:55Senior superintendent is laughing. She knows the terminology.
07:58Yeah.
07:58It's a reference for talk to this person. So they have, they are well connected.
08:03So when you're taken in jail, like, you have some people you talk to, and then they bring you out.
08:07So you give it, you give up reporting.
08:10Yes.
08:11Let me just come to Abdul Nasir. What do you think about gender-based violence in Uganda?
08:16Me, I think it's fine to beat a woman.
08:19You think it's fine to beat a woman?
08:21Yes.
08:22Why? Because a woman is a punching bag?
08:25No, she's not a punching bag. But when you're dating, I start becoming too optimistic with her.
08:31And I start, like, feeling I want to settle with her. Then she start doing some wrong things.
08:38So you're trying to discipline her?
08:40For me, I think that I'm just putting her in line.
08:43Don't you feel there's another way you could do that without being physically violent towards her?
08:48When you do something wrong, I just keep shut for, like, several times.
08:54And when it becomes too much, I have to discipline you.
08:58Yes. The police has something to say to that.
09:00I totally object. Violence against any person is criminal in Uganda.
09:05And we have laws punishing violence.
09:07To me, I would urge couples to communicate their grievances.
09:12Yes.
09:12If you fail to agree amongst yourselves, you can seek services.
09:16But battering or any form of violence, I speak as a police officer, is criminal.
09:21Kinari, the gentleman here, says he feels it is his responsibility to discipline his partner.
09:28Do you think there's a cultural problem here?
09:29Yeah, there's a cultural problem in the way society really expects people to be,
09:35especially when you look at the upbringing of persons here in Uganda.
09:39We grew up when, you know, in the community, men are beating women, women are beating men.
09:47And therefore, there's even a belief of I am powerful more than you and therefore I should beat you.
09:52When you find cases where, for example, a woman is earning more than a man,
09:55you find they have to feel like they are, you know, should pretend I'm over them.
10:00And therefore, there's a societal and cultural problem.
10:02Let me just come back to you, Diane.
10:04What would you say is the common misconception that people have of survivors of gender-based violence?
10:11One of the most common misconceptions is the man had to have a reason to treat you like that.
10:19That they justify violence?
10:20Yes, that's how they justify it.
10:22A woman must have done something wrong to make the man hurt them physically or emotionally.
10:28So, Bob, that brings me to you because your organization,
10:31which is the Gallup Initiative, right, is working with people like you, men, women, to change the narrative.
10:38What exactly are you doing in that area?
10:41We normally advise these survivors to, first of all, go to the police and report
10:46because there is no case if you've not gone to the police to report what you're going through.
10:50In your case, do they report in any case?
10:53It's quite challenging given the fact that there are a couple of factors that are stopping them,
10:58some of them from going to the police to report.
11:00And one of them is attributed to the economic factors that are being faced by most of the families in Uganda.
11:09The man is the breadwin of the family.
11:12And at the end of the day, he's the one battering the wife.
11:15And the woman feels insecure.
11:18And she'll be like, no, no, no, no, no.
11:19If I report my husband, he's probably going to chase me out of home.
11:22And at the end of the day, I'm going to be homeless.
11:25Then there's also a factor attributed to cultural norms and gender stereotypes.
11:31There's stigma that is mostly caused by family members.
11:35It depends on which clan you're coming from and all that.
11:38But in most cases, someone has maybe paid dowry for you to get you out of your home.
11:45And they take that as leverage that I paid for this woman.
11:50I have a right to do whatever I want to do to them.
11:52I will just come to Olivia here.
11:53Do you feel that the exchange of dowry is enough justification for why a woman should submit,
12:00even in the case of domestic violence?
12:02Yes, please. It is.
12:04If I'm educated and I have money and you tell me you paid dowry,
12:09I can pay that dowry back and I go anywhere I want.
12:15Everyone is agreeing to that.
12:17The only problem is that most of the women here are not educated, are not empowered.
12:23They don't have money.
12:25So empowering girls would help and reduce on this gender-based violence.
12:31Safina, do you think the people, the Ugandan people, have trust in the justice system?
12:36No, we do not have trust in the justice system, to be honest.
12:41The justice system is part of, is an arm of government.
12:46And in previous years, we've seen how government has been at the forefront of,
12:54you know, victimizing women themselves.
12:56In what ways?
12:57For example, there was the Anti-Pornography Act.
13:01It was repealed, but it was also called the Miniscart Bill.
13:07When this bill was signed into law, so many women were victims of harassment.
13:15Because at that point, it was looked at as, you know, you literally going against the laws to dress the way you want.
13:27Men use this as sort of a cover to do all sorts of inhuman things to women.
13:33But also we saw how the police itself would, you know, drag women off the street because you're wearing a dress that they deem to be inappropriate.
13:45Let me just come back to senior superintendent here.
13:49Uganda has signed and ratified very serious conventions.
13:53From the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
13:59You have the Maputo Protocol.
14:00You have the Sexual Offenses Bill.
14:03You also have the Domestic Violence Act.
14:05You have the Child Children's Act.
14:08You have all these laws in place.
14:10Yet women continue to feel they cannot trust the justice system.
14:15Do you feel that the government does really care about the lives of women?
14:19We are always at the front when it comes to blaming government or the justice system.
14:24Police, we are just part of the justice system.
14:26Personally, I've taken survivors for protection orders.
14:29I'm a lawyer by training.
14:31I do draft free of charge pleadings for, of course, you wear a situation.
14:36And I've personally drafted so many pleadings to secure protection orders.
14:41Under the Domestic Violence Act, you can procure protection order for safety as the case progresses.
14:50But I've always been disappointed by the judicial.
14:52With the due respect, we forget other players in the criminal justice system and people there around us.
14:58So as government, I think we have to increase on the number of courts and state attorneys.
15:05We bring those services closer to the people such that people don't have to trick.
15:10Because out of the cases that are reported to police, many collapse because of those other challenges.
15:16Okay, now I just want to go to the back.
15:18Does anyone of you have anything to say regarding the topic?
15:21Yes.
15:21You're going to be scrolling down TikTok and you find a video of a lady asking herself,
15:26Why would a man beat me?
15:28You've not yet paid dowry for me.
15:31Meaning there is a mindset that even ladies have a belief that for a man to beat you, for a man to oppress you, he should have paid dowry for you.
15:40So it is all about a mindset change.
15:43I feel like when it comes to hitting a woman, there is no justification of hitting a woman.
15:49But at the same time, I feel like our society has been diluted that we are losing the concept of a family.
15:57Because even religiously and historically, there is supposed to be submission when it comes to a family.
16:05Let me just come to Abdul here, who so much thinks that it is okay to beat a woman because for him, it is his responsibility to do so.
16:14If your sister's partner beats her, are you also okay with that?
16:19No, I don't feel okay.
16:21You don't feel okay if your sister's partner beats her?
16:23It's not good to beat a woman, but sometimes they force us.
16:27Sometimes they force you to beat them?
16:29Yes.
16:29Isn't there another alternative where you can solve the situation that you're faced with, for example?
16:35But some of the ladies, they force us to beat them.
16:38All right.
16:39What do you think about that in the back?
16:40Yes.
16:41What do you mean they force you?
16:42Do they hold your hand and make you slap them?
16:45I believe the man's priority is based on controlling women in this era.
16:52Because they feel like if I'm not controlling a woman, then I'm not a man.
16:57In the Ugandan setting, we are so shameful.
16:59To come forward, to talk about these things.
17:02And we have that fear of judgment.
17:03Even in marriages, there are some violence that happens, like rape.
17:09Some men believe that there is no rape when you're married.
17:12What does the law say about rape in Uganda?
17:16We have the Penal Code Act.
17:19It defines rape as having sexual intercourse with a lady without her consent.
17:24Does it apply in the case of intimate partners?
17:26Apparently, it is being discussed under the sexual offenses bill.
17:31However, as our laws stand, we don't have a criminal offense named marital rape.
17:37We are trying to have it under the bill that is before Parliament.
17:41And that bill has been there for ages and still not assented to.
17:45Does anyone in the back have anything to say about that?
17:48I do believe religion is actually one of the biggest enablers of violence.
17:52Because when we look deeper, we find out that patriarchy existed long before most world religions became popular.
18:03And then most religions, like if you look at the religious texts, they say things like,
18:07the woman should submit, the man is the head of the home.
18:12But like when we look at surveys, surveys show that in relationships where there are no hierarchies,
18:17partners report better relationship satisfaction.
18:20I'll just come to the, here now, to the ladies.
18:23What do you have to say to that?
18:24We can never be the same as men and women, but rather, the women should be taught,
18:29despite that they are empowered, they should have an unhealthy relationship.
18:33And also the men are being ignored in our society.
18:36There are most cases whereby the society, it prepares women to be good women,
18:41but doesn't prepare the boys to be good men.
18:44So now there is an unhealthy relationship.
18:47Let me just come to here.
18:48It is wrong to beat a woman.
18:50I strongly urge against it, although a woman should know how to respect.
18:57And another thing is that it is never the woman's fault to be violated.
19:03When you say a woman should know how to respect, can a man not know how to respect as well?
19:07No, a man should know how to respect a woman.
19:10Okay, so we have an agreement that respect goes both ways.
19:12Yes, it goes.
19:14I'll keep it there.
19:15I think it all comes back to victim blaming.
19:17Why do you blame the victim rather than the system?
19:20We live in a patriarchal society, whereby men are trained to dominate and not to communicate,
19:26like what the other guy was saying, if I'm having issues with her, I'll beat her.
19:29Why don't you just communicate?
19:30And also women, they are being trained to endure rather than speak up about the things they are facing.
19:35And it also comes back to a religious background.
19:38Now, Abdul Nassir has something to say.
19:40Have you changed your mind or are you still maintaining your stance?
19:44Yes, I've changed my mind.
19:45Oh, yeah, he's changed his mind.
19:48Okay.
19:49Right now, according to their opinions, I want to become a good man.
19:54Okay, that's good to know.
19:55I want her to become my friend.
19:59But you have to, ladies, you have to show us your original behaviors.
20:04And do you think communication can help in this?
20:07Yes, it's good.
20:08So now you will communicate instead of instilling fear and fighting?
20:12Yes, I can change.
20:14Okay, I think that's a good thing that we did here.
20:17Diana, we are talking about going forward.
20:19We're talking about solutions.
20:22What would you expect of society in terms of how we treat women and their livelihood,
20:30but also the lives of women we're talking about here?
20:33I think, first of all, there should be awareness.
20:37The public should know that there are different forms of abuse.
20:41So if I go to police and report that I was abused financially,
20:45there should be some kind of investigation that is done.
20:48And the second thing that Olivia mentioned is women empowerment.
20:55Empowered women do not get abused easily.
20:59Either they'll fight back or they'll have you reported.
21:04Let me come to you again, Bob.
21:05You're working with men to change the mindset in the communities.
21:09What are some of the strategies that have worked effectively so far?
21:12We have a designs hub where we bring together a couple of women,
21:16both survivors and then the people that don't have access to education.
21:20And we offer them skills in tailoring.
21:24At the end of the day, it is a year-long program.
21:26And at the end of the day, we've imparted knowledge in them
21:29for them to be able to go and, you know,
21:32maybe seek a job in a tailoring company or a graphics design system.
21:36So we also offer some education programs around digital literacy for women, mostly.
21:44What we do is we take them through a couple of courses around computer studies.
21:51At the end of the year, they are given a certificate,
21:53which is known by the government,
21:55so that they are able to go and seek jobs just like someone else who went to university.
21:59Then also, recently, we also came up with a program of mechanics
22:04where we encourage young women, both out of school and in school,
22:09to come and join.
22:10What we do is we place them into partner garages
22:13where they get to learn how to work on motor vehicle mechanics and all.
22:20And at the end of the courses, we help them secure jobs,
22:23either at the garages where they're working or in any other garages,
22:28just to tackle the element of economic empowerment.
22:30I would just come to you quickly, Kenari.
22:33As a journalist yourself, what do you think can be the role of the media
22:37in terms of raising awareness on gender-based violence,
22:40especially that most of the people who are affected are women?
22:44Well, I think that we need to do a little more training.
22:47The journalists need to pick more interest,
22:49and that can only be done if the journalists themselves are trained
22:52on what, you know, is termed as GBV.
22:54Most of these topics, you know, seem to be normal in our faces,
22:59but we don't understand them deeply.
23:01Once there's training, the journalists themselves will pick interest
23:04and therefore be seeing more stories around GBV.
23:07There's a need to also, maybe on the side of the police,
23:10to be able to engage all stakeholders.
23:12One, the police needs to overhaul the system.
23:15Why do you say that?
23:17Because the empowered, the trained officers are the senior ones.
23:21The ones that deal with the actual cases,
23:24the ones that do the reporting, the ones that do the investigations
23:26and not train the junior officers.
23:28And therefore, I think that there's need to overhaul the system
23:30and police needs to rethink this
23:31because handling these cases and women and men being able to get justice,
23:35it will start with the police officers themselves.
23:38Remember, it starts with a single case being recorded.
23:40And therefore, if they are not trained,
23:42there's going to be difficulty in access to justice.
23:45We so much agree that they are, in fact, a part of this.
23:48But we've mentioned the power imbalances in the beginning.
23:51We've also mentioned community.
23:53We've mentioned the cultural norms.
23:55What will it take, Caroline, to change the way women are treated in the society?
23:59For starters, I'm glad we're having this conversation.
24:02We need to have more and more of these
24:04because part of the problem is that we're not talking about these things.
24:08So you'll find someone that is violated
24:09and they don't even have an idea
24:11that the situation they are in is violence, actually.
24:14Let me just come to you as senior superintendent.
24:16As Uganda Police Force, like my brother Kanara said,
24:21we take training and capacity building as very focal
24:24in addressing gender-based violence.
24:27I'm so proud that we do sensitization.
24:30Personally, I've been to media houses.
24:33We've been to communities.
24:34We are using social media accounts to speak to people
24:38and condemn violence along with the community.
24:41So we are doing so much in creating awareness through community policing
24:45and we are sensitizing communities.
24:48We go to universities.
24:50We go to schools, schools, even kindergarten,
24:53to talk about children's rights and the fight against gender-based violence.
24:57That is very important.
24:58And I just want to end with Safina here.
25:00We mentioned in the beginning you were eight years old
25:03when you experienced sexual violence.
25:04What would you tell your eight-year-old self
25:08if you were to go back to that moment?
25:10I'll tell her that she did nothing wrong.
25:13It wasn't her fault.
25:15And the shame is not hers to carry.
25:18It's for the rapist.
25:20Well, it wasn't her fault.
25:22And the shame has to be on the rapist and not her.
25:26I think we have already established that there is a problem
25:29and there is so much that can be done
25:31to ensure that women are safe
25:33and they are indeed prospering for the development of Uganda,
25:37to be specific.
25:38Thank you so much.
25:38My name is Fatui Elika Mouloshi.
25:40See you another time.
Comments