#GirlPower

Sorry! Guess that’s the most appropriate way to pick up after not having written a word about the last two and a half weeks… whereas there is so much to say! Today it’s the 22nd of July, and in the past days/weeks we’ve been on a short safari, I’ve helped representing CDRN at another event, we travelled to Kigali, Rwanda and currently I’m hundreds of kilometers away from Kampala… indeed plenty food for thought and blog! I won’t burden you with an everlasting post, but rather cut it in pieces. One could argue that the night is young, but equally after today’s events the body is tired (see how I’m building suspense by not telling you where I am or what I did? I’m building a cliff hanger, you’ll find it out later, after I’ve made you go through everything else I want you to go through, haha!). Let’s see how far I get!

Imagine walking backwards all day… that’d be awkward and unnecessarily difficult. Therefore I’ll equally go on with what happened longest ago and move from then to now. In terms of non-daily, interesting events that means we’ll go back in time to the 9th of July. Earlier on in the week I had received an email from UWONET, the Ugandan Women’s Network. I’ve been in touch with some people there through my research, and as such must have ended up in their email list as ‘partner’. They invited me to attend the launch of the Women’s Manifesto 2016-2021, which together with member organizations they had written and were going to publish in the lead up to the elections in February. In general, as the elections come nearer there is more and more attention for it in terms of events, news and other activities. Anyway, I figured it might be cool to go so I replied that I’d like to attend. It appeared the day after that CDRN had been invited as well, and was going to have a small stall on the premise, similar to the CSO fair, and sell some books. Coney and Dorcas got chosen to go, but because both were unavailable Rebecca was going to go alone, so I offered help to join as I planned on going anyway. I prepared the books and CDRN poster on the afternoon of the 8th and on the 9th, after some inevitable East African delay, we arrived at the place (Makerere University Freedom Square) around 9.

We set up the stall (half a table in a long tent shared with many others) and waited for all people to arrive. At 8.30 a procession should have started, walking to the university, but of course they were almost an hour late. Fortunately there was a band and choir of traditional singers and musicians, so I simply enjoyed their ongoing performances with songs, drums, some weird wooden thing I guess we best call flute and other instruments. The place was fancy with multiple tents, a small stage for speakers and everything in the colours of the Ugandan flag (black, yellow/gold, red). Finally then the women arrived, led by the police band. Carrying a multitude of banners, posters and other signs it was impressive to women from all over the country crossing the terrain, visibly proud to be there. Another long while went by without anything happening, other than people chatting, ‘shopping’ at the stalls and finding their seat. People also bought surprisingly many books at our table throughout the day, given that most of the books are approaching being outdated. In the end we sold for just over 200.000 shillings, which is about… let’s say 60 euro.

The Manifesto itself concerns five different topics (okay I clearly was more tired than I thought… I fell asleep mid typing, exactly here, and woke up with my laptop on me two hours later… I’m continuing this the morning after!) list topics . For each of these there is a chapter in the manifesto and a representative from relevant women’s rights organizations gave a speech. It is interesting to hear about the state of women’s rights from these actors and their point of view. Very much remains to be achieved and there really still is a struggle for achieving gender equality and equity, as well as real rights. Mother mortality at birth remains shockingly high (approaching 1 out of 2), land rights for women are minimal, economic empowerment is often lacking, etc. etc. etc. I asked for instance what happens when a man/husband dies with the land he owns. ‘We’ would (reasonably?) assume that in such case the wife, through marriage or law, obtains the ownership and nothing too much changes. However, often it is the case that the (oldest) son will become owner and, if he pleases so, the wife may remain to live on the land. Otherwise it could be that other male relatives get the land, a brother of the husband, an uncle or whoever, and the wife (and children) are at risk of being evicted from their very own land. This of course makes it hard for a woman to earn a living through agriculture, if the land you work and that feeds you and pays for you and your children is never really yours…

There also was a speech from the guest of honour / key speaker. What she said intrigued me less than how she was treated. Some female minister (I think) was meant to show up, but this was not possible and thus she sent a representative that read her speech. This person, the chairperson of female members of parliament in Uganda, was thus treated with all fancy privilege. The dancers came towards her and danced around her as she arrived, the executive directors of key organizations greeted her and walked with her, she got the best seat, the anthem was played after she arrived etc. etc. Sometimes it is not difficult to understand why people in any form of higher position also feel important. Of course, you treat a member of parliament different from any other random person, but I felt that the prevalence of corruption became somewhat more understandable watching this person being treated as a queen, undoubtedly boosting her ego.

After the speeches and some other talking and music it was time for the Honorable Lady whatever her name was to officially launch the manifesto. A large version of the book was unveiled, which I captured on video and photo as I was part of a group of ‘paparazzi’ circling around whatever happened so we could put some photos in the CDRN report on attending the event. It was then up to political parties to pledge to support the manifesto and fight for achieving targets set. Funny details: it seemed for a while as if there was nobody representing the government party (NRM) and they have an interesting euphemism for the opposition: government in waiting. This is true of course, any political party might one day be part of government, but if you consider that all parties except for one (the NRM) have been ‘waiting’ for 35 years already and are unlikely to get into government next year…

We sold some more afterwards, got some food and then left at around 14.00 to go back to the office for an afternoon of ‘normal’ work. Wow only realize now how much I wrote… oops!