Information gap failing rural women's emancipation in Uganda/Le Fosse d'information entrave l'emancipation de la Femme en Ouganda.

• Author: Mugira, Fredrick
• Position: Cover story

Jurina Kyomugisha, a Ugandan housewife in Rugyera village of Kashaari Mbarara district spent over a week in jail in Mbarara central prison early July 2008. After she received a court bail, she returned home only to be given a heroic welcome by fellow women in her village. She is now enjoying a queen's treatment by fellow women in her village for having cut off the penis of a man she allegedly found red-handed defiling her 10 year old daughter in June 2008.

Police in Mbarara now say that Kyomugisha must be punished for cutting off Mugarura Geoffrey's private parts which doctors at Mbarara referral hospital failed to reattach. She now faces charges of unlawful wounding. Police accuse her of taking a wrong decision. The Mbarara District Police Commander says that Kyomugisha should have reported the defilement case to authorities and left the law to take its course.

Kyomugisha's case is not an isolated incident. Many Africa women find themselves taking wrong decisions either because of lack of relevant information or anger. Donantas Orikiriza, the Programme Officer for National Foundation for Democracy and Human Rights in Uganda (NAFODU) says that lack of access to relevant information leaves women unable to take right decisions. "They are unable to take right decisions because they actually lack information on what is right and wrong and so they end up acting the way they want and not how it should be," says Orikiriza. "How do you expect a rural housewife who spends over five hours in garden to fight for her rights, stand up against domestic violence and take part in decision making if at all she has no access to information concerning these issues," he continues to say.

Surely, women belong to vulnerable groups that are prone to several problems such as disease, domestic violence hence they need enough information to enlighten them on how to overcome them. The fact that several women in rural areas have remained engulfed in several problems nearly two decades after the Ugandan government launched a campaign of promoting women emancipation, shows that they are not equipped with the right information to end such problems.

Turyasingura Hope, the technical advisor for Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention contends that women especially those in rural areas are not getting enough information to liberate them from social ills. "Most of illiterate people in Uganda are women so they can not afford to read. They are also poor so they can not afford to buy a radio set, a newspaper or television set," she reveals. She says rural women de on outreach programmes from NGOs and civil organizations to access relevant information on certain issues. She however laments that such organizations are limited by financial and human resources...