One remark that reverberated with me after our fact-finding trip to Uganda was made by a female police officer in Rakai, a town 180km south of Kampala close to the Tanzanian border. She said “many women you see working, they are actually unhappy because of what they have at home.”
We visited the Rakai District because it's where HIV/AIDS originated and still has very high prevalence. Kasensero, a fishing village in the District by Lake Victoria and home to Uganda’s first reported HIV/AIDS infections, is now regarded as a brothel town. HIV prevalence among female bar workers is as high as 74.5%. Rakai Health Sciences Program (RHSP), one of the most well-equipped medical research facilities in the region, is based out of the District due to its historical and medical importance. Johns Hopkins University, my current academic institution, is proudly involved with RHSP.
RHSP staff strongly encouraged us to speak with officers at the District’s local police station. Although station is the largest in the area, it is a mere one-story building. We walked passed a cell to meet with officers, though I did not dare look inside. Surprisingly, all of the police officers we met with were female. In a country that is so patriarchal, why were women in charge? It struck me that when these strong officers discussed women's challenges at home, they were likely speaking to their own experiences rather than to those of others.
Ugandan women are expected to stay home and take care of the children instead of working to help support the family, which is seen as only the men’s responsibility. In 2009/2010, 24 % of women did not receive any form of formal education, while it was less than 10 % for men. Although this disparity decreases over time, gender equality in Uganda is still a challenge. This gender disparity makes Ugandan women vulnerable to gender-based violence (GBV) in their households. Women are economically reliant on their intimate partners, which engenders their fear to negotiate or deny sex with their husbands. If women have HIV/AIDS, many are afraid to tell their husbands. It is often automatically assumed that they cheated on their husbands, and never the other way around. Telling their partners does not only jeopardize their own physical safety, but also their ability to survive in society due to stigmatization and lack of economic opportunity.
The international community and NGOs recognize this issue and have been carrying out various women’s economic empowerment interventions both for female empowerment and poverty reduction. Programs and policies have been rolled out to raise awareness about the importance of ending violence against women and girls. Such programs include women’s vocational training, peer mentoring programs, and gender mainstreaming. Although male involvement is usually included in program implementation planning, in reality men are often left out of the interventions. Men need to be involved in programming to stop the cycle of GBV. On the ground, programs will gather around 20 women and explain the importance of their voice. Many development programs use ‘women’s empowerment’ as a panacea to GBV. In fact, men can perceive women’s economic autonomy as a threat to their traditional role of family provider and turn to violence to gain their power back.
GBV is a complex issue and needs deep changes in attitude, cultural norms, and legal enforcement. Looking into the female police officer’s eyes as she told me the bitterness of many working women, I was struck with an idea. Economic independence for working women is not an absolute answer to solving GBV or HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Both women and men’s involvement and serious commitment are needed for Uganda to gain gender equity, reduce HIV/AIDS transmissions, and alleviate poverty.
