Ugandan women to act on sexual abuse

"Almost all forms of abuse happen when the perpetrator has power over the victim, be it as pastor over a church member, teacher over student, father over daughter, or boss over employee. That is why it is so difficult to stop it. Fear plays a big role."

Uganda, Christmas 2001. Something is very wrong when schoolgirls going home for the holidays worry that, in the very community where they should be safe and protected, they may be raped or rented out as prostitutes. For too many children and young girls, poverty, alcohol abuse and other factors turned the Christmas vacation into a nightmare.

Sexual abuse is all too common in Uganda, as in many other societies. At a workshop for Reformed women held in Kampala at the beginning of March, Helen Wamala of the Kampala Evangelical Free Church explained why.

Many of us, she said, are products of a society where women are seen not as partners but as subordinate beings, there for the benefit of the men. Changes in society and the extended family mean less social control and community support than before. Patterns of behaviour from the Idi Amin dictatorship (1971-1979), during which disappearances, murders, rape and defilement were the order of the day, are still considered normal by some today, even though the government has taken measures to stamp them out.

All of this is compounded by the scourge of HIV/Aids. Thousands of children, left without parents or guardians to look after them, are easy targets on the streets. Widows and single mothers are completely overwhelmed by the number of children for whom they are now responsible (most look after some orphans as well) and in desperation turn to prostitution in order to feed them.

Thirty women, representing six of the seven Reformed churches in Uganda, shared their stories in the workshop. They recognized that, in the church no less than in society as a whole, women play a key role in change. As part of the wider mission in unity efforts of the seven churches, they decided to start the movement, Reformed Women in Unity (RWU). This will run one of the joint mission action programmes identified by the churches, community conscientization in the two key areas of HIV/Aids and sexual harassment and abuse.

The workshop ended with the nomination of a steering group to coordinate the joint work, followed by an act of commitment in which participants pledged to support one another as they go back to their local communities and get to work.

Jet den Hollander