“Big Men” are getting away with rape easily

The word “rape” is one that never gets thrown about that easily as we have learned recently. For African women in some societies, being raped carries long lasting negative implications on the reputation of the raped woman. No matter how humiliated and undignified rape victims are always unfairly ostracized by society for their daunting fate. It is so sad how big men are getting away with rape offences so easily in our society today.

Women basically carry the burden of moderating morality in our society. Our social scrutiny on morality has been defined by the conduct of women and girls, generally. Being raped therefore implies moral deficit on the part of the victims and bad reputation for the woman and her family. The perpetuators of this horrendous crime usually are accorded hero status and lauded for s job well done.

Sadly, in most societies, women do not report rape not that they do not want to, but mostly because they have no voice and fear further reprimand that may lead to social isolation. Often, after they have been raped, their abysmal social position becomes a barrier that discourages them from reporting rape to the authorities.

The sad fate of the woman’s powerlessness is even made worse when men in position of power are the ones implicated in the rape. Two comparative cases involving high profile “rape” allegation this year will help to explain this and space wouldn’t let me add in a rejoinder, that of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski.

When the 32 years old Guinean Nafissatou Diallo first reported to the authorities that former IMF Executive Director and French Presidential hopeful, Dominque Strauss-Kahn had raped her on May 14, 2011, the New York City authority responded swiftly and humiliatingly arrested and detained Dominque. With all the brouhaha that followed the high profile case, it eventually collapsed entirely on the “questionable” character and reputation of the accuser.

 Just as DSK’s case was winding down, in Uganda, Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Venansius Baryamureeba was in the news for rape, impregnation and abundonement. This follows a Uganda Human Rights Commission’s investigation into the case of unnamed 26 years old female student who claimed that the Professor intoxicated her and then raped her. She was therefore carrying an illegitimate fetus resulting from rape. Like Ms Diallo’s case, the allegation against the VC also collapsed under very eccentric circumstance.

The two set pieces cited above compares quite well because of their similar characteristic, plot and ending. Both DSK and Prof Barya are distinguished member of the society and in very influential positions. The two victims are simple women in no position of power and influence. Both women were subsumed by the very tide of their absurd experiences – rape.

The manner in which these cases dissolved only reveals the consistency in the pattern of how rape as a criminal act is very difficult to prove or prosecuted when big men are involved. Most men in position of power have been able to emerge unscathed from allegations of rape and that leaves the woman/victim in worse off position.

The woman is ripped off credibility and decency and she appears like a shameless liar and scoundrel. Often, everyone begins to think or speculate that such women resort to rape allegation to blackmail for money. The perpetuators walk away with swagger of a hero and brags to you that “you see, didn’t I tell you she was tripping?”

Our lesson could as well be well laid down for us, that rape is a crime for the poor committed against poor women and not the powerful. Accusing a powerful person of rape can only embarrass them momentarily. It can temporarily erode their reputation as we saw with DSK, but at the end of it all, the fact that the woman was sexually assaulted remains largely ignored or downgraded. In unprincipled and unprofessional environment like Uganda, they whole story lingers a bit in the corridors of power and dies a natural death in few days.

I pity the woman in our villages and peri-urban slum dwellings that are exposed to the current economic hardships. Lots of reports are indicating that some parents do actually pray for their daughters to get raped by a rich person so they can initiate negotiation for settlement “out of court”.

The Guardian Newspaper recently reported that in Uganda, trend of rape reporting have been changing with more women attempting to report rape or sexual violence incidences. For instance, according to the Guardian, in 2007, there were 599 rape cases reported to Uganda Police and 1,536 cases of sexual violence related cases were registered. In 2010 the Police in Eastern Uganda recorded 5, 515 cases of sexual violence of which 2,564 were under investigation. Another 1,745 culprits had appeared in court, and 1,721 suspects have been charged with at least 388 convictions secured. These are encouraging figures, but considering the constraints experienced by the Ugandan authorities, women have continued to experience delayed justice.

Rest assured, those who face the wrath of the justice system are peasants, the poor and the desolate petty criminals. The real rapists in suits and shinny shoes never seem to commit rape.

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There is a difference between white privilege, racism and prejudice

Events unravelling in the Mormon Church and its splitter groups in the US and Canada in the last couple of years, can provide us with great opportunity to appraise the dominance of cultures, traditions and values in our societies. I will use these events to explicate the differences between the so-called “white privilege”, “racism” and “prejudice”.

In the US a prominent polygamist, Tom Green from the state of Utah, was sentenced to five years in prison recently for fathering 25 kids with 5 different women.

Last week, another controversial figure, Warren Jeff (55), the leader of Texas based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was sentenced to life imprisonment for defilement and fathering children with underage girls that his church claimed, he was lawfully married to.

In Canada, Winston Blackmore and James Oler of Bountiful, British Columbia were arrested in 2009 and charged with marrying 20 and 2 women, respectively. The Crime of polygamy in Canada carries up to five years in jail once convicted. Cases against both Winston and James were dismissed on technical grounds by a Judge on the premise of gross professional misconduct on the part of the prosecutor involved with the matter. Tom, Warren, Winston and James are all members a break away Mormon Church.

Both US and Canada have outlawed polygamy. This has deep roots in the evolution of these societies from pre-industrial stage to its contemporary capitalist tendencies and relentless struggle by women. Here, most relations are purely economic relations. People only relate to the other in as far as there are foreseeable opportunities for benefit or advantage. Money and only money tie families and friends together or separates them, bitterly - thus defining social relations.

Such tradition definitely contrasts with our own African setting, where our societies are more intimate, socially and quite egalitarian in many realms. People relate and support each other purely on principles of reciprocity and respect for posterity. Polygamy was socially sanctioned and valued in many ways; it was the measure of success; multiple marriages served the purpose of linking discrete groups. Marriages served the purpose of reconciliation or social construction between societies that have had long standing enmity. In that essence, multiple marriages by a man served security interests in many ways; the more sons one has, the more guarantee he has for his family and property; the more girls, the more wealth accruing from dowry. Many wives, children and grandchildren also implied ready labour source, wealth and satisfaction.

Given the above, US and Canadian polygamists could flee to Africa to claim for protection from persecution, in the same way same sex (gay) individuals and political refugees have fled Africa and are accepted in these places. Our problem is that we have been dispossessed by dominant discourses to condemn polygamy in the same manner as we see here in US and in Canada.

The imperative of this story is to understand what has been presented in Critical Social Perspective as the “white privilege” but at times misconstrued to mean racism or prejudice. I think as a scholar, it is very important to discern these terms so as to delineate our social discourses from stereotypical perspectives.

The constant denouncing of our cultures and social values for me fits with the purview of the “White Privilege”.  Theories of white privilege, posits that the dominant white culture view their social, cultural, and economic experiences as a norm that everyone should experience. This is different from racism and/or prejudice which advances that the advantaged position of the dominant group must be maintained at the expense of others. This explains to the most, why most of our cultural, social and even political experiences have always been condemned and downgraded for many years at our own complaisance.

In my view, understanding the white privilege as that which belies all forms of bigotry and global inequities, including the calibration of “acceptable” international standards of export, justice, mannerism, education, religion and so forth, would help us enormously in rebranding our cultural, social and religious values without relinquishing them.

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Sugar is a very crucial working class fetish!

 I don’t know what happened in the 80s that at some point, the Dr Obote’s regime was blamed for widespread scarcity of basic commodities like sugar and salt. In fact, I recall Museveni lambasting Dr Obote for not having had prudent economic policies to enable Ugandans access sugar, salt, soap and other basic household supplies. To him, neo-liberal economic policy of open market could have answered all the challenges of basic human needs. What I saw in Museveni’s denigrating speeches against Obote have returned to haunt him. In Acholi, we mock the monkey that laughs at the other for having a tail, forgetting that it also has one!

Sugar is very important commodity and it forms primal part of everyday life of typical working class Ugandan irrespective of the job or social status. Sugar has become a fetish of some form. Ugandans are avid consumers of tea and coffee and no matter what daily temperature they may endure, they must have tea or coffee in the morning and in the evening.. Majority of sugar users have some form of addiction to it. Sugar defines the taste of the day for them and gives them hope and inspiration. Sugar even defines breakfast and sets a man’s day.

In Uganda, you got to understand how sugar is very crucial in a man’s daily life before you just hike the taxes or the price on it. In fact, Ugandans cherish two things; sugar and their beers. The reason is that despite the adversities that they endure on their daily endeavors, the prospect of having tea or breakfast with sugar in it, and few bottles of beers at the end of the day, really consoles them. I mean, sugar occupies a special role in our society in a way that salt does not. No one can imagine not having salt for a day, but to not have sugar is the litmus test of one’s absolute poverty level. And when they say some Ugandans live below poverty line, try to understand it that they already forgot about sugar, but they still always have salt.

Having sugar or being able to provide sugar for the family is also a measure of class. One would rather not have lunch, but spare money to buy a few kilograms of sugar for breakfast and evening tea. And a lot of men know for a fact that for those who cannot buy sugar, their marriages and relationships can seriously get threatened. When an ordinary Ugandan wakes up, they will not think of different and creative ways of eating breakfast, but tea. That poor woman, who stays home and does all the unpaid chores; she strives to make breakfast for her family, if she has no sugar, she feels powerless and a persistent sense of failure.

So, here comes President Museveni with his so-called “robust” economic success story but the one who cannot provide sugar to Ugandans. Even when he should, he does so at an astronomical price. I was personally amazed that while at Kakira sugar works, Museveni blamed Acholi elders for having caused the sugar scarcity by refusing to give Madhvani land to farm for more sugar.

Museveni can be comical at times, but the pity is on those who take his jokes a little too far. The Madhvani land grab attempts were in a period not exceeding three years ago. Sugar canes take more than three years to mature. This implies that even if Madhvani or Mehta were to acquire that land and had they planted their sugar canes, most probably, they would not have started harvesting it or producing sugar from it by now.

But the twist of the matter is here; how come in the last twenty five years of NRM rule, Sugar has not been this expensive? I contend that the scarcity of sugar and its high market price signifies the beginning of the collapse of the Museveni era bubble economy. First, it was the inflation and then high gas prices and these things have capacity to spiral and reverberate to impact on all commodity costs. Petrol and Diesel (gas) are the key determinants of availability of goods and services on the market to the masses. If a nation has poor policy on management of gas, every service becomes unstable since for a landlocked country like Uganda, we have to move commodities from far.

Must I remind you, Mr. President, that the boda boda man and the students cannot have Butunda lager which has no sugar? Wala!!!

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Promoting Maternal Health is our collective Ideal

For a woman who live in the urban center; has education, a job and a gainfully employed spouse - living on two incomes guarantees the sense of safety. For the rural woman, who performs unpaid household chores, has no education or any steady income or nutritious meal, and a spousal relation with a man of no means - life for them is a risk each and every hour.
The two situations depict the dichotomy of our horrifying society characterized by the disparities in the distribution of the fundamental determinants of women’s health. In Uganda any woman who is at the child bearing age is indiscriminately at serious risk of dying and the risk is worse for the woman of lower socio-economic status. This is absurd for a country where health care has not won a major fiscal consideration when compared to other sectors like the Military or Statehouse.
The United Nations Development Program, in its Millennium Development Goals report (2011) posited that from 1995 – 2000, maternal mortality in Uganda stagnated at about 505 deaths per 100,000 live births. Uganda Demographic and Health survey indicates that there are 435 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. For Uganda to meet its MDG target, maternal mortality rate must be reduced from 505 to 131 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015. According to government of Uganda’s MDG report (2010), 16 women die every day and nearly 6000 woman die every year from childbirth.
Despite the numerous policies that are in place to reduce maternal mortality, nothing seems to be working. For instance the National Safe Motherhood Programs was put in place to recruit and reinforce skills of Traditional Birth Attendants to support save motherhood (Ssengooba et al., 2003).
The National Population Policy, geared towards reducing fertility and maternal related morbidity and mortality, was predicated on easing service accessibility, improving quality of care, informed choices, has not worked (Ssengooba et al., 2003). Increasing age of marriage amidst poverty for girl child and the UPE/USE policies have all not prevented early pregnancies leading to maternal deaths.
There are a myriad of other programs and policies, including DISH that was sponsored by USAID for six years. All these efforts, including the elaborate Healthcare structures in place, have failed. What could be the problem?
Politicians blame incompetency of healthcare professionals, including Obstetric surgeons for these deaths. The professionals on their part accuse the government for understaffing and under funding programs and projects that could be crucial for monitoring the health of mothers when they conceive to the time they deliver.
If Uganda’s policies were to be informed by valid scientific evidences, their health promotion strategies could have salvage mothers from the merciless grip of death.
A study by Ugandan scholars, Mbonye et al., (2007) and titled “Declining maternal mortality ratio in Uganda: Priority Interventions to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”, offers a lot of insight into the key causal factors contributing to the high maternal mortality rate in Uganda.
This study revealed that availability of competent staff and more so midwives in health centers had the highest protective effect on pregnant women (80%). This was followed by availability of functional laboratory, theatre, electricity and clean water, all of which lack in majority of the health centers. In fact, the study also established that 97.2% of healthcare facilities expected to offer Emergency Obstetric Care (Emoc) where not doing so.
So, what is seemingly true is also that Ugandan mothers die in the 102 hospitals; 671 HCIVs and 878 HCIIIs than when they do not seek medical help at all since only documented death are often reported in studies.
These deaths are attributable to nosocomial infections since there is no water for sanitation and electricity to sterilize emergency care equipment; haemorrhage and obstructed deliveries. Further, despite all the available policy frameworks and programs, they are ineffective because they are largely corrupted and alienate the woman from preventive care, creating greater health disparity and unequal access between private and public services.
The poor mothers in the rural setting who need these services the most, and who are most disadvantaged, bear the brunt of our insensitivity. I contend that promoting of maternal health is an ideal upon which all other functions of the state must be adjusted and we should not waver on that obligation.

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