{UAH} LEILA MARGRET'S PROBLEM IS NOT UNITERISM IT IS ACHOLI VIOLENCE

Leila Margaret – aged 65 years old

 

 

Leila Margaret, Pader District, Uganda. Photo: Rose Papararo/Concern 2012

 

Like hundreds of thousands of others, Leila Margaret and her family were forced by the ongoing conflict to leave their home and their community in 2002. They lived in a camp for displaced people for four years and returned home in 2006. On Margaret’s return, she started preparing to cultivate her land to grow food for her family. She was given maize seeds that she sowed. Then someone came and uprooted them. Determined to support her family, Margaret decided to sow sorghum on the same piece of land. Again her crop was dug up. She was also beaten up and others in the community did not talk to her. At this time she heard on the radio that other women had similar issues over the land they previously cultivated. She felt that what she was going through was too much, she felt unsafe, and she needed support.

Margaret visited the local Uganda Land Alliance office and met with Ema, a lawyer. She asked him to come and mediate. Ema visited the land and marked the boundaries, but again this was uprooted. For two years she had not been able to support her family by growing food, but she hopes to this year with ULA’s support. As a widow with nine children, she still perseveres with land despite these troubles.

Leila Margaret, Pader District, Uganda. Photo: Rose Papararo/Concern 2012

Prior to the war, these conflicts were unheard of as people knew their land. Now there are more widows, and clarity over land boundaries have been lost. There are no physical land titles, and traditionally much of the land belongs to clans. When a husband dies, in-laws in particular can take advantage of this situation as in Acholi culture women don’t have a say.

The Uganda Land Alliance is a local organisation supported by Concern that advocates for women’s access to, control of and inheritance rights to land. With your support, we can help women like Margaret to regain the land that is rightfully theirs and support their families.

 

 

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"