The month of March is seared in my memory as the Women’s month worldwide. It triggers specific memories about the struggles that Ugandan women have gone through and continue to endure to be recognised and rewarded as full members of a patriarchal society. Surely , we have come a long way since 1984- the time we celebrated the International Women ‘s day for the first time in Uganda.
This year’s celebrations were held at Butemba College in Kyankwazi District, South Buganda. My nonagenarian mother sat glued to the television to watch the celebrations as she has done for the last ten years or so.
To recognise our accomplishments as mothers of the nation; juggling family, caregiving and work , I felt it necessary to post an article on this blog.
The most ideal one I could come up with was the one I wrote in March 2020 because it still holds true in light of the reality on the ground but I had to scroll through Uganda’s fact sheet of 2024 at the UN Women website to catch up with the times.
One item that caught my eye was the fact that in 2024, 33.9 % of the seats in the current Parliament of Uganda are held by women. Worth cheering for when compared to the one and only pioneer , Mrs. Florence Alice Lubega in the 1962 Parliament. That is until I checked the available data from our neighbours in Rwanda and Kenya.
Of the 80 members in the lower House in Rwanda, 49 are females translating to 61 percent of the total with 30% attributed to affirmative action for women.
In Kenya, there are 96 females across the two chambers of 416 members, translating to 23 % of the total still without affirmative action.
Uganda ‘s affirmative action to get more women in Parliament started in 1989: the women in each district to be represented by one female from the area. It is ongoing.
According to the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association, out of the 557 members in the current parliament, 189 are females translating in 33.9%. Of these 146 are District Women representatives and 13 are elected constituency members. A lot remains to be done by the women themselves and the men and women of Uganda together to increase the women numbers.
“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”- Malala Yousafzai
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