Friends
It was around 7 or 8 pm – there was no moon….I was preparing the food [in front
of the hut] and someone arrived saying he was a visitor for me…he said he loved
me and I would be his wife but I said ‘I’m not here to look for a man’. He was
just saying nonsense but he wouldn’t go. He began to grab me – he was very
tall, like 2 meters, and he [lifted me] like a baby…I couldn’t move…I said ‘My
God, if he has Aids I’ll get it and die and I’ll never see my children’ so [I
prayed]…He couldn’t [carry] me into the house because the door doesn’t open
wide enough. I said I would report him to the police and the commandant, and he
said ‘What can they do to me?
These are rapes happening in our country right now that Ugandans like Peter
Simon Okurut justify for they are selling a concept that if you are a woman in
a war zone you must walk with your pants off. It is okay to rape women because
it happened in Vietnam. And seriously that is the reasoning I keep on getting
from UAH membership. Refugee Law Project Working Paper No. 20 has a heading
“GIVING OUT THEIR DAUGHTERS FOR THEIR SURVIVAL” REFUGEE SELF-RELIANCE,
‘VULNERABILITY’, AND THE PARADOX OF EARLY MARRIAGE . We are gladly posting
from page 14.
Friends we so need to discuss Acholi violence but candidly.
1.1 Sexual Harassment, Peer Pressure, and Early Marriage
In all settlements visited, refugees recognised the fundamental connection
between early
marriage and education. All refugee youth—even those with some means of
financial support—
face a variety of obstacles to their education, including the cost of school
uniforms and supplies
and the need to help parents with agricultural activities, particularly at
planting and harvest times.
Girls must surmount additional impediments that are often justified on the
basis of culture,
including the gendered-division of household labour and the popular perception
that sending
girls to school is less likely to benefit the family. As one young woman
explained, in addition to
directly forbidding their daughters from attending school, some parents
indirectly discourage
girls from studying:
The girls [aren’t given a] chance to read in the night. When you come back home
they want
you to go and collect water and so some girls end up being the last [ranked] in
the class. They
get ashamed on their own and simply drop out of school.22
The continual teasing, verbal abuse, and sexual harassment from family,
friends, neighbours, and
schoolmates—and even from teachers—reported by female students in all four
settlements
represent additional obstacles that exacerbate the effects of these cultural
norms. One 15 year old
girl being raised by her older sister described how she walks 2 ½ hours each
way to school so
that she can live at home and help her sister. As the only female P7 student in
her area, she is
regularly taunted by other youth—many of them married—who do not study: “They
say ‘see,
you’re an orphan and you’re studying. Do you think your sister can afford to
pay for you?’” As a
result of this peer pressure, she said, “I can feel bad. When they’re asking me
like that they can
discourage me. Even me I can see how my sister lives so how can she buy books
and pay school
fees?” Despite these negative comments, she explained,
“What encourages me to study well in P7 is that I could get a scholarship. Even
my sister believed
I would get a scholarship.” But now, she continued, “it is nowhere to be seen.
Even those who were studying, they chased them.”24 Both
girls and boys are affected by such teasing, but girls in particular are
frequent targets of sexual
harassment including threats of sexual violence. For instance, a group of girls
explained that their
male classmates used numbers to describe girl’s body types, using “Figure 1” to
refer to girls
with “collapsed [flat] breasts” and “Figure 2” to describe girls with “shooting
[protruding]
breasts and bigger bottom.”25 A boy in another school in the same settlement
confirmed this
practice, explaining how girls are discouraged from continuing their education
once they have
reached puberty: “Other girls get [verbally] abused in school [for example]
that they have big
breasts, [so] she should just get pregnant now because she is ready.”26
Harassment does not only come from students. Interviewees in all four
settlements reported
incidences of teachers impregnating students and either eloping with the girl
or running away
and leaving her behind. In Kyangwali, for example, a young woman described how
her married
P4 teacher coerced her into having sex with him at school when she was 16: “He
was working on
[getting] resettlement…and he told me that once he goes, he would pay [my]
fees. So I agreed to
have sex with him.”27 She explained that when she became pregnant, she was
forced to leave
school and raise the child alone: “It was at the end of the year and…[I told
him] and that is when
he fled back to Congo…He had left [his wife and children] in Congo and I
suppose he went back
to them.”28
A young man in secondary school in Madi Okollo reported, “Some teachers are also
impregnating their students,” and he complained that he and his fellow male
students were
“competing with them seriously”29 for girls. Accordingly, he and a number of
his colleagues saw
no problem with relationships between students starting in school, claiming
that some of the
boys and girls involved “will decide to marry when they complete S6.”30 When
asked why he
decided to marry, the same young man admitted, “I was really ashamed by my
colleagues when
they were all having wives and so that is when I decided.”31 Delaying marriage
until the
completion of S6—or even S4—however is extremely rare for girls living in the
settlements. To
the contrary, most refugee girls become involved in early marriages for a host
of reasons,
including factors linked to such sexual harassment and peer pressure.
1.2 Early Marriages and Physical Security
Settlements can be dangerous places to live. Located in isolated rural areas of
Uganda, their
agricultural orientation means they are spread out over large areas32; although
some refugees live
nearer to neighbours than others, almost all live quite far from understaffed
police posts and
OPM offices. Officials working in all four settlements cited assault,
defilement, and simple theft
as the most common crimes. Although less common, more serious crimes such as
rape and
murder were also reported, and contribute to the subjective fear of violence
that many refugees—
particularly women living without adult male relatives—expressed to researchers.
Alcohol abuse is common in the settlements, and is often related to the lack of
educational and
economic opportunities amongst encamped refugees. As one official explained:
“If these
boys…drop out of school and parents cannot afford [secondary] education, what
do you expect
of them? They just resort to drinking.”33 In practice, officials working in all
four settlements
blamed alcohol abuse for increased incidences of petty crimes, assault,
domestic violence, sexual
assault, rapes, and even murder. Insofar as alcohol contributes to a sexually
threatening
atmosphere, it encourages parents to seek marriages for their
daughters—whatever their ages—
as a means of protecting them from SGBV. Referring to the large number of girls
who are
sexually abused, one police official working closely with refugees explained
the dilemma that
parents and other guardians face: “The only way [to prevent this] is to marry
you off, so you find
there is a very high rate of marriages and pregnancy of adolescents.”34
Therefore, although such marriages are illegal and constitute defilement, many
parents consider
them a practical necessity representing the lesser of two evils. Paradoxically,
the majority of
those who brew alcohol are women—and even girls in their early teens—who lack
alternate
income generating activities to pay for school fees, food, and other
necessities. For example, one
widowed woman explained cultivation alone was not enough to provide for her
four children:
“What can I do? Just from digging I can’t get the children soap and clothes.
There is nobody to
help me.”35 Although she described it as hard work and dangerous, she said
brewing the local
alcohol known as waragi was her only means of supporting her family:
I sell it at the market and use the money to buy food for the children…Men come
here and they
are drunk and beat me…even 2 times per month! They can hit me with sticks
because they
have no money [to pay].36
One of these men, she explained, raped her at her home, and she became
pregnant. Nevertheless,
she said she has no choice but to continue brewing alcohol: “The children are
hungry and I have
to give them food – where else will I get the money to feed them?”37
Although not as common as defilement, rape represents another serious threat to
the physical
security of refugees living in settlements. Girls and women reported that they
feared assault
whilst carrying out everyday tasks such as fetching water and firewood, or
walking to school,
church, or the market, especially given the low population density in most
areas of the rural
settlements and the presence of only a handful of police. In the words of a 19
year old orphan
living with her sisters:
We are fearing…the situation because the [nationals living] within the
settlement are making
bad things... if you are going to the market they want to rape you, and if you
are a boy, they
will take your bicycle. You know the market is far.38
Moreover, women living either by themselves or with other females explained
that they were
commonly targeted by men who knew they lacked adult males to ‘protect’ them.
One such
woman described how she came to be living alone after her husband was killed in
Congo and
how she became separated from her two children while fleeing to Uganda. She
explained that
inebriated men would threaten her and other women at their homes: “Men even
take the drug
they call bhang [marijuana] and come to the house at night…they can also come
after
drinking.”39 She proceeded to describe the first of three such incidents that
she survived:
It was around 7 or 8 pm – there was no moon….I was preparing the food [in front
of the hut]
and someone arrived saying he was a visitor for me…he said he loved me and I
would be his
wife but I said ‘I’m not here to look for a man’. He was just saying nonsense
but he wouldn’t
go. He began to grab me – he was very tall, like 2 metres, and he [lifted me]
like a baby…I
couldn’t move…I said ‘My God, if he has Aids I’ll get it and die and I’ll never
see my
children’ so [I prayed]…He couldn’t [carry] me into the house because the door
doesn’t open
wide enough. I said I would report him to the police and the commandant, and he
said ‘What
can they do to me?’
Many refugees expressed little confidence in the ability of official actors—and
particularly
police—to protect them from violence in the settlement. Structural factors are
much to blame for
this reality. For example, when asked to describe obstacles to protection, a
government official
focused on the financial and other difficulties facing police working in the
settlements.40 Chief
among the problems he mentioned was the lack of manpower; in Rhino Camp, for
example, this
means there is only one officer to every 1500 refugees, not to mention
nationals living in the area.
Such understaffing is common throughout Uganda’s refugee settlements, and
indeed, most of the
country with the exception of Kampala and a few major towns.
Although the introduction of a community policing approach was widely cited as
improving the
handling of crimes—and particularly SGBV—and yielding improved relations
between refugees
and nationals, police are significantly hampered by their extremely limited
means of
transportation and communication. Other problems mentioned by the official
cited above
included inadequate provisions for huts where individuals in need of special
protection can be
temporarily housed, and delays and mishandling in the Ugandan judicial system.
Although most
of these problems could be resolved with increased funding, he referred to
police training as one
key area in which additional work is necessary: “[There is a] lack of skills in
handling protection
cases by the police. So they need in-service training and workshops because
most don’t have the
training of handling refugees.”41 Unfortunately he said, “After you have
created capacity, after a
very short time these [police] are transferred and new people are brought in,
and [it] costs you
again for more trainings.”42
The latter was a common complaint in all four settlements. Although the
curriculum in which
police officers train has been greatly expanded in recent years,43 there is no
guarantee that
officers who gain on-the-job experience with refugees will be assigned to work
with refugees,
and even those who do are not exempt from the system in which all police are
rotated to different
posts throughout the country every 6 months. Although officers recognised that
this was simply
part of their job, most spoke of a desire to see the system reformed for the
sake of the
communities in which they work. Police interviewed in Kyaka II, for example,
suggested that
there be an overlap of at least a few days so that the departing officers could
introduce their
replacements to the settlement. In Arua, officials have associated the
repatriation process with increased rates of crime,
including defilement, within the settlements. Certain crimes are committed by
nationals against
refugees—particularly theft of animals and other property—owing to belief that
it is time for
them to go home. Moreover, southern Sudanese refugees suspected of crimes are
taking
advantage of the relative stability at home—especially since the signing of the
Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005—to flee to Sudan, where tracing them is
often
impossible. According to police, OPM, and other relevant officials, most of
those who flee have
been accused of defilement. As one government official explained, “Defilement
cases…are very
difficult to follow now. Once [suspects] know there is some follow-up, they go
to Sudan.”45
These shortcomings have a critical impact on the safety and security of
refugees living in
settlements. After recounting a recent incident in which three boys raped a
girl who had gone to
grind her ration of maize, the 19 year old girl quoted above reported how,
while returning home
from the market with empty soda bottles, she and her female neighbour survived
an attempt by
two boys to rape them outside a church near their homes. Her description of the
incident
demonstrates the dangers girls and women in particular face in the settlements
while challenging
traditional conceptions of female vulnerability:
We had just reached the church here [when] they stopped us. They had followed
us…[and told
us] ‘I love you, I want you as my girlfriend’…and said that they will give us
5,000 Shillings
[less than 3 US Dollars] and they want to play sex with us. We refused…And they
got annoyed.
>From there, the boy started to remove his shirt, he start to come and catch me
>so that he will
throw me down, then I just pick a bottle…to beat him, but the bottle fell down,
then I take a
stool of the church and I start beating him. He now starts fighting. Allah, the
boy was big! I
then take a stick and start beating him and making noise. Meanwhile my friend
also helped me
beat. The other ran. I know his name because we were schooling in the same
class in P3.46
Encouraging examples such as this are rare, however, and in the absence of
effective official
protection many refugees view marriages as the best—and often only—means of
protecting
women and girls from SGBV and other forms of violence. Paradoxically, refugees
reported that
girls and women who become pregnant from rape are sometimes forced to marry the
rapist. This
particularly affects underage girls without guardians. When asked how marriages
were
conducted in her settlement, one woman who herself survived a rape there
explained that:
Those that don’t have [a father], they can get married younger…[sometimes when]
somebody
sees a girl, like in the centre, and knows…that she doesn’t have anybody
[looking after her], he
can take her and ‘marry’ her, rape her at 16, 17.47
Early marriages take place in an environment where relationships with men are
commonly
considered an acceptable means for single adult women—and especially widows—to
meet their
needs. Although they work to prevent early marriages, some officials working
with refugees do
not do enough to explicitly challenge this belief; indeed, a few may even
actively encourage it. In
the words of one widowed woman who became involved in such a relationship in
the settlement:
“One day [an official] addressed people and said women without help should get
themselves men
to take care of them because [officials] were not able to do every thing for
[us].” She explained that
although such ‘marriages’ were often detrimental for the women involved, there
were few
alternatives:
These women are looking for how to survive: they cannot do certain things that
need men.
Even if you come crying to the leaders they won’t help you…[and yet] men keep
laughing at
women who don’t have husbands, and knocking at their doors, telling them to get
men to help
them. It’s too much for single women [so] that’s why they look around for men
who end up
mistreating them.48
Therefore, in a climate where relationships with men are widely viewed as
necessary to protect
women from the pervasive insecurity of the settlements, early marriages that
themselves may
constitute human rights abuses—and a form of sexual violence—are often seen as
the only
means of ensuring girls’ physical safety.
1.3 Early Marriages and Economic Security
In addition to motivations of physical security, early marriages are often
viewed as an essential
economic survival strategy for girls and their guardians. Besides the financial
benefits of a
relationship with an economically productive man, girls—and more commonly their
parents,
relatives, or other guardians—receive bride price which can be used to meet
certain needs
including to start businesses, pay debts, buy more land, or even pay for
education. As one
UNHCR official explained, the desire for bride price is a major cause of early
marriage; in fact,
it is “the root cause actually, and what brings this up is poverty.”49
For example, when discussing early marriage, the brewer quoted above contrasted
her relatively
secure financial position in Sudan with her diminished circumstances in Uganda:
“My father was
[well off] in Sudan – he worked a lot and had money. My mother was good also
[so] I married
when I was 17.”50 She lamented, however, that her economic situation in the
settlement was such
that her own 13 year old daughter might not have the opportunity to marry at an
appropriate age:
“If somebody comes with money that I can use to eat and feed the children, I
will sell her.”51 She
explained that although the bride price would be “little”, it would be “enough
to provide for us”
and that if she herself met a man with money to support her family she would
“go [with him]
right away.”52
In the context of the settlements, education is typically the first sacrifice
that refugees must make
in order to survive. Indeed, when asked about the differences between national
and refugee
students, teachers pointed out that the inability to pay school fees and other
financial constraints
commonly leads to early marriage among refugees, particularly those staying
without parents.
For many teenage girls, staying with an extended family member or a foster
parent could actually
worsen their prospects for education as compared to staying with parents or
even alone. As one
female teacher explained,
Among the refugees, most of the girls are not staying with parents, and are
with family
members or others who are just helping them. They are not their real children,
[these people
are] just assisting them. So they see [girls] go early in the morning [to
school] and coming late
at night and not be contributing much to the house, and they don’t like it. So
some are told to
get married, to get their own home.53
One young orphan—herself a Ugandan Acholi who became pregnant and was
subsequently
forced by her guardian to marry her Sudanese boyfriend and move with him to
Madi Okollo—
explained that orphans and other girls living without their parents in the
settlement were
particularly likely to view a sexual relationship and an eventual marriage with
a boy or a man as
the only means of meeting material needs: “Some girls don’t have a mother or
father so there is
nobody to buy the things she needs, so she marries.” 54 An NGO official
explained the
detrimental effect of such relationships on girls involved, lamenting their
inevitability in the
absence of resources:
The girl begins to have a divided allegiance between school and the boy. In
most cases the
only way to prevent this is to support the girl but because of limitations at
our level and at the
community level this ‘solution’ would continue until the girl gets trapped into
pregnancy and
marriage.55
As a government official explained, male refugees sometimes take advantage of
unaccompanied
girls: “If you are a female and [a man is] interested in sex, [he] can use you
because your father
is not around.”56 Indeed, a number of female students told the RLP that men
came to the school
grounds to proposition them for sex, offering them money for school fees and
other needs. One
NGO official working closely with refugees with specific needs recognised the
link between
vulnerability, limited livelihood options, and the unfeasibility of the
Self-Reliance Strategy:
One reason they get settlements is self-reliance: if they dig they can sell
[their produce] to buy
basic necessities. We expect [self-reliance] within one year, apart from EVIs.
It makes most of
young girls become women at risk if there is a boy who can offer them soap,
etc. It leads to
abductions [for] attempted forced marriage.57
Crisp refers to such exploitative sexual relationships as “forms of
concubinage” that—in addition
to commercial prostitution—are “one of the most frequent means for refugees to
survive in a
protracted situation.”58 Female students trapped in such relationships
inevitably become pregnant,
and are forced to drop out of school and seek the means to support another
life, often with little
or no assistance from the man who impregnated them. As a male teacher
explained: “In a
desperate attempt to survive, you can do anything, especially on the side of
girls.”59
Many officials echoed this sentiment: without financial support, refugees often
had little choice
but to arrange marriages for themselves or for their daughters. While a number
of officials
interviewed have maintained that parents need sensitisation on the importance
of education as
means of discouraging early marriages, research indicated that the situation is
actually more
complex and is linked to established gender roles. Early marriage in many cases
is viewed a
means to education—of boys: “Of course, the parents want to get bride price out
of girls so
maybe they can educate the boys.”60 Thus, sisters—whether older or younger—are
frequently
expected to marry in order to provide for their brother’s futures, underscoring
the value placed
on education despite limited resources and the need for greater awareness of
the importance of
educating girls and women.
Parents motivated by their own financial concerns may actively promote their
daughters’
involvement in relationships inevitably leading to early marriages: “A number
of our school girls
you find them with a boyfriend who is known to the parents and [who] is giving
some support to
the parents and so the parents allow him to interact with her at any time.”61
The same official
continued to explain that “The set-up of the settlement provides rich ground
for parents to push
for early marriages. If they see the neighbours are well mannered they tend to
encourage.”62
These financial motivations do not stop once a girl has been married. Although
many girls might
return to school once their first child is old enough to be cared for by a
family member or friend,
they are often prevented from doing so by husbands who want more children. In
the context of
agricultural settlements, the traditional practice of bearing many children who
can help with
cultivation remains important. Moreover, many refugees have recognised that
under the system,
having more children means a larger population on ration cards, and therefore
more food that can
be divided amongst the whole family. When rations are reduced in accordance
with the SRS, this
becomes a particular concern for students and others who unable to devote the
majority of their
time to agriculture. According to one young husband who returned to school
after marriage,
when he proposed that he and his wife use family planning, she refused:
When I tried to tell her to use family planning, to use condoms, she told me
that I [was] joking.
For her [she wants] to produce kids so that our ration card will increase, and
[we get] more
food…so I just put the thing aside to avoid conflict.63
Given the low rate of reporting relative to the high numbers of early marriages
evident in the
settlement, it appears that most cases are indeed resolved among families and
within
communities in a process that most refugees appear to recognise as a legitimate
response. In
addition to the financial incentive to arranging marriages rather than
reporting a crime, the costs
of pursuing a legal case represent a major disincentive to reporting. Refugees
have explained that
such costs might include paying money to Refugee Welfare Councillors (RWCs) to
write letters
attesting to the situation, transport costs for police and for the suspect to
be brought to town, and
the cost of attending trials.
Some refugees, however, have exploited the process for their own financial
enrichment. As one
young man complained, “Once you are caught with a certain girl, [her parents]
just charge you
money, even for just talking.”64 In some cases, the threat of reporting
defilement to the police is
used to ensure that a boy or his family accepts the marriage and pays whatever
amount of money
the girl’s family demands. In other cases, males might be able to avoid what
amount to forced
marriages—some of which are also early for the male as well as the female
involved—by paying
‘penalty’ fees to girls’ families and remain unmarried.65 The actual amount of
money to be paid
varies according to a number of factors including tribe, nationality, the
financial position of the
male and his family, and the age or education level of the female, but might
range from 50,000 to
2,000,000 UGX.
In order to raise the necessary money, males often do leja leja, or casual
labour, that—when
available—enables them to earn a small daily wages as opposed to waiting for
harvest time to
sell produce. Many were forced to drop out of school to focus on such work. The
consequences
of not paying are severe. Boys who are unable or unwilling to pay—with or
without the help of
their families—face being accused of defilement. In addition to the risk of
imprisonment, boys
who will not or cannot pay are frequently subjected to harassment, ostracism
from their
communities, and even violence. One teenage student spoke of the risk of being
attacked for not
paying bride price, which in his community was often as much as two million
Shillings: “So if
you are [only] digging maize, especially with price fluctuations, you [can’t
afford this and] have
to run away.”66 Indeed, many young men in this situation see little alternative
but to escape to
other settlements, to towns, or increasingly, back to safe areas in their
countries of origin.
Moreover, while girls are likely to experience pressure to drop out of school
to get married to
secure bride price for their parents or guardians, boys are more likely to be
pressured to drop out
of school to do agricultural work. Once they have dropped out, boys typically
experience familial
and societal pressure to marry and start families, making them unlikely to
return to school. One
young woman explained how initial demands that boys miss days of school to work
eventually
leads many to drop out altogether: “The only way [to survive] is cultivation,
which is not that
easy. Before school, kids have to work in the garden, then they are late and
they might be sent
back [home].”67 As a result, refugees face a dilemma: “The very kids who are to
help [parents]
are the very ones to go to school so how can they concentrate [on their
studies]?”68
2 REFUGEE SELF-RELIANCE AND VULNERABILITY
Early marriages clearly represent a survival strategy for encamped refugees. In
theory, however,
Uganda’s Self-Reliance Strategy is intended to provide the means by which
beneficiaries can
overcome at least some of the vulnerabilities inherent in being a refugee,
while also benefiting
host communities. As a UNHCR report explained:
The promotion of self-reliance is essential in developing and strengthening
[refugees’]
livelihoods, protecting their dignity and enabling them to positively
contribute to the local
economy. Self-reliance is a form of empowerment, and is also considered a
protection tool as it
helps to reduce factors which make refugees vulnerable to various forms of
violence and
exploitation
The widespread nature of early marriage indicates that these aims are not being
realised in
practice. Indeed, two major factors—limited freedom of movement and declining
official
assistance, particularly in the education sector—not only prevent refugees in
Uganda from
attaining true self-reliance, but in many cases exacerbate existing dependence
and vulnerability.
Following a brief analysis of the history and content of the Self-Reliance
Strategy, this section
will examine these two obstacles in greater detail, and assess their impact on
refugee youth and
their communities.
Stay in the forum for Series two hundred and twenty on the way ------>
EM
On the 49th 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"
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