Humanist

On my mind are women I have never met.

Women I have only fleetingly heard about, because domestic violence and gender-based violence, as a whole, has become normalized in my Country.

Today, I am thinking of all those women incarcerated for murder and or manslaughter where the deceased was in a domestic relationship with her.

Mostly so, victims of domestic violence meted out on them by their late husbands.

The justice system of our Country, mostly does not factor in the women’s prior long suffering as victims of gender-based violence in the home.

The crime they are legally found guilty be appreciated in the context of putting up a self-defense so that their abusers did not murder them. Case in point:

On the day he died, he came home drunk. He abused and started beating me when I told him I could not sell the land my father gifted to me. Because he was drunk the stick fell. I got it and hit him in anger. He fell down and died. ” 35 year old mother of eight children.

“One day, he came home with a panga (machete) and tried to cut me, but it fell down. I picked it up, cut him and run away. He later died because of over bleeding.” 27 year old mother of three children.

“The day he died, we fought and I pushed him. He hit his head on the cupboard and died.” 21 year old mother with three children.

Testimonies extracted from an empirical research report titled: “Women who kill in the context of domestic violence in Uganda. How does the criminal justice system respond.” The PDF is available to download here.

On their day in court, only that which transpired on the day their abuser died is what held sway.

It is scandalous, furthermore, that 91% of women incarcerated for murder or manslaughter who were surveyed said they had no access to a lawyer.

In whatever way that you can, please help in creating awareness on this silent injustice widely prevalent in Uganda.