{UAH} IN PREPARATION FOR SERIES 145

Friends

 

Just before I tackle another study from Tennessee University, about Acholi violence, let me just jump into the middle of it and pull an example of why we need to raise up and go after Acholi violence. Here are two very good examples used in the study that is going to be in the next series.

 

A husband and wife got into an argument over money. The wife wanted to negotiate

with her husband a budget to curtail his expenditure of household income on alcohol and

gambling. As the head of the house, the husband was enraged by his wife's insolence. In

Acholiland, it is customary that the male head of the house alone decides the allocation

of household income. This prompted a domestic dispute that resulted in the husband

beating his wife to death. In a frenzied state, he proceeded to tie her body to the back of

a boda boda [motorcycle-taxi] and dragged her through the streets. People witnessed

the crime and the man willingly confessed his guilt. He was sentenced to many years in

prison, but his time was significantly reduced because, the community determined, it

was better that the children are raised by their father instead of becoming orphans.

 

While the expunging of the man’s legal sentence may be interpreted as a sign of tremendous

fallibility in the legal system, it is a decision that is strongly influenced by culture and

community concerns. The decision to leave the children in the custody of their father, in spite

of killing their mother, is a testament to the gravity of community concerns over orphaned

children. Uganda has the “highest proportion of AIDS orphans worldwide,” (Save the Children

2011). According to a Congressional Research Report on the current crises in northern Uganda,

there are “over 1 million orphans from the AIDS crisis,” the majority of whom are in the north

(Dagne 2011:16). There is high community anxiety over who will assume responsibility for

taking care of orphaned children—a responsibility that may overwhelm families that are

already economically strained. Orphans face diminished chances of receiving and education

and, otherwise, accessing the materials they need to lead healthy lives (Oleke et al. 2007). In

the aforementioned case, the community viewed the uncertainty of securing orphaned

children’s livelihoods as a greater concern than the danger of leaving the children in the

custody of their father. This is a critical observation for two reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates the

influence of culture on judiciary decisions which aim to address the concerns of communities.

Secondly, it underscores another devastating consequence of sexual and gender-based

violence: orphans who face livelihood insecurity.

 

A man came home and accused his wife of adultery (very common thing to happen

here). She denied the accusations and they started fighting. The fighting escalated with

the husband setting his wife's private parts on fire before hacking her to death with a

machete. The man’s two children, having witnessed their father murder their mother,

ran to their uncle’s hut and relayed the events. In order for the courts to convict their

father of murder and sentence him to life imprisonment without parole, thus leaving

them orphaned, the elder child had to testify in court. He was six-years-old.

 

Rather than the silencing effect I anticipated—indeed, it seems the Resident Judge

anticipated—the room bubbled with men’s laughter. The police, UPDF soldiers and security

forces in attendance laughed as the judge described the details of the second case. The part

about setting the wife’s vagina on fire was particularly funny.  One man in the row in front of me

leaned over to his colleague and chuckled, “And that is why you should not cheat on your

husband.” The Resident Judge was not laughing; the women in attendance were not laughing—

all victims themselves of sexual and gender-based violence; men in attendance there to provide

testimonies as survivors of torture were not laughing. The laughter that uncomfortably divided

the room made clear the discrepancies between the signing of a UN Convention and its

meaningful translation into social protection.

 

And this what makes me enraged. You have beaten her and you have killed her. Why drag her through the streets? And to the second man, you have set her vagina on fire why hack her to death? But most importantly, just how many people have been murdered by Acholi to to-date?

 

But Akim Odong, do you even firkin care !!!!!!!!

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"