None in Three Survey Report for Uganda

Uganda is one of the most dangerous places in the world for women.

• 56% of women in Uganda aged 15-49 report having experienced physical violence
• 22% had experienced sexual violence at least once since the age of 15 years
• In 2011, 65% of women suffered domestic violence

The notion of domestic violence is relatively new and largely unknown to Ugandan society, with many citizens believing the term refers to the most serious cases where severe physical injury is sustained. Other barriers to victims accessing help include stigmatisation and a lack of responsiveness of mostly male police officers (Women’s Rights in Uganda, 2012).

To address the high rates of GBV, in the last few years, sector-specific legal reforms have been put in place including:

• the 2010 law on Domestic Violence and the 2011 Domestic Violence regulations
• the anti-Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2010
• the anti-trafficking in Persons Act of 2009
• the Equal Opportunities Commission Act in 2007
• the National Action Plan on Women (NAPW) of 2007 – however, there was no indication as to who would finance its implementation.

Between 2007 and 2012, the annual budget of Uganda allocated $50,000 per annum (approximately 0.001% of the total budget) to address violence against women. In August 2016, the Cabinet approved the Elimination of Gender Based Violence policy for Uganda. The policy mandates that the government should allocate resources for the implementation of GBV laws, such as the Domestic Violence Act 2010. Uganda ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1985.

Uganda’s strategy to end GBV and achieve gender equality:

The Second National Development Plan (NDPII) 2015/16 – 2019/20 has been developed to transform Uganda, in line with the aspirations of Uganda’s Vision 2040 (“A Transformed Ugandan Society from a Peasant to a Modern and Prosperous Country within 30 years”). This Plan aims at strengthening Uganda’s competitiveness for sustainable wealth creation, employment and inclusive growth. It prioritises investment in five areas, including (1) agriculture, (2) tourism, (3) minerals, oil, and gas, (4) infrastructure development, and (5) human capital development. The attainment of gender equality and women empowerment is conceptualised as a prerequisite for accelerated socioeconomic transformation. Although Uganda has made a significant progress in the area, women continue to face constraints related to access to, control over and ownership of businesses and productive resources. There is also limited employment of women in skill-based industries and women are marginalised in skills development, access to financial resources, and inheritance rights. To address the above, the Plan lists the following goals: (1) end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere; (2) ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life; (3) enhance the use of enabling technologies, in particular information and communications technology (ICT), to promote women’s empowerment; (4) undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources in accordance with national laws.

The National Strategy to end Child Marriage 2014/2015 – 2019/2020 is a holistic, comprehensive framework that reflects the commitment of the Uganda Government to end the practice of child marriage and other forms of violence against girls. The goal of the strategy is to end child marriage in Uganda for enduring prosperity and social economic transformation. One of the strategic areas of focus is on changing communities’ mind-sets, knowledge, aspirations, behaviours, and social norms that drive child marriage and teenage pregnancies. It also hinges on the principle of protection, i.e., children should be protected from all forms of abuse, violence and exploitation, including harmful practices. In design of programmes and interventions to address child marriage, all stakeholders should be aware that child marriage is often associated with violence, abuse, and confinement; and integrate mitigating components. Overall implementation of the strategy will involve multiple stakeholders involving government, development partners, and civil society organisations.

In 2017, the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development published the National Male Involvement Strategy for the Prevention and Response to Gender Based Violence in Uganda. This Strategy was developed to encourage and support men and boys to take responsibility for their sexual and reproductive behavior and to abstain from all forms of discrimination against women and girls. The specific objectives include: (1) To guide the development and/or review of GBV policies and programmes to integrate interventions on male involvement; (2) To promote transformation of harmful gender norms and practices that perpetuate GBV; (3) To provide guidance on provision of male-friendly services to male victims of GBV; (4) To raise awareness among male GBV duty bearers to provide gender sensitive GBV services; (5) To promote strategic partnerships in engaging men and boys in prevention and response to GBV; (6) To strengthen research and documentation to enable evidence-based intervention on male involvement in prevention and response to GBV.

GBV in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda:

The introduction of social distancing and lockdown-type, stay-at-home measures has resulted in conditions conducive to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of the most vulnerable members of the society. Those who are abused by family members, often have little or no access to the usual routes of escape. As such, the world has witnessed a surge in domestic violence cases since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Lindgärde & Houinato, 2020; Townsend, 2020). Although Ugandan police reports show that, as of the 31^st March 2020, there were 5 fatalities as a result of domestic violence during the lockdown, the magnitude of the effect of the pandemic on domestic violence will become clearer once the lockdown-type measures have been lifted. In recognising the need to prioritise the well-being of women and children during the pandemic, the Uganda Women Lawyers Association (FIDA-U) started a petition calling upon the Uganda Government to integrate measures to address violence against women and children into their responses to COVID-19. In addition, António Guterres, the United Nations (UN) secretary-general, said: “I urge all governments to make the prevention and redress of violence against women a key part of their national response plans for COVID-19” (see Fang, 2020).