Sexual harassment is understood differently by different people. However ignoratia non excusant must be the answer for the harassers, be women or men. The use of law may be a powerful tool in both prevention and response to sexual harassment in all context and equality between women and men must be seen as a struggle of humanity, a struggle for both men and women. In the face of sexual violence and discrimination, everyone is concerned and everyone needs to act. Find FULL ARTICLE HERE
It is that time of the year when everyone gets excited about the holidays. The Christmas bells have started ringing (the jingle bells). Around time senior four and six students are writing their final exams. While primary seven students are already on holiday. Institutions are planning closure dates, finalizing project reports and proposal writing in search for funds. It sounds a busy time of the year, right? Everyone seems to get to a vacation mood. Chritsmas is around the corner.
This season comes with challenges. The preparations for holidays come different in various homes. Vacists have planned to watch movies, play, get to driving schools, roam around Kampala, swim, visit friends, read novels, join computer schools etc. Others have arrangements to visit and stay with relatives.
In the previous years, such a time of the year came with cultural norms and practices. Young girls would be sent to their aunties and boys to uncles. At these places, boys and girls engaged in learning, re-learning and un learning various practices. Girls were taught how to peel, cook, wash, cleanliness and prepared to become women. It was a taboo for a girl to get pregnant while at home and girls were nurtured towards keeping their virginity until marriage. There movements to trading centers during their first menstrual periods was limited- this was meant to help them learn how to keep clean but also never to engage in sex during the time. On the other hand, boys were taught fatherly roles in the home, how to work, and ride bicycles among other activities.
The whole set of comprehensive sexuality education was given to these holiday makers. Christmas season was such a joy. The girls and boys could gather in the evenings around a fire place and tell stories. The stories again passed on information to them, some of which allowed them as men and women to make informed SEXUAL REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH decisions. During the day, girls went into knitting sessions. It was hard to find a girl of the time who didn’t know how to knit either mats, baskets, or the like.
Today, such cultural norms and practices have faded. Of course the world has developed. This development has come with implications to the realization of the right to health. While such times exposed girls and boys to things that made them busy but also to people that had accurate information on SRHR, and allow tem make informed decisions, today, the story is different. TV, Play centers, radios, video games, social media and the internet are the order of the day. Girls and boys as young as you can imagine know much correct and much wrong SRHR information gathered from various sources. These prefer to listen and learn from their peers as much as possible- perhaps because the roles uncles and aunties played are no longer possible? Or is it because parents are too busy to guide them into making informed SRHR decisions?
While this is the case, and as long as the country continues this way, the right o health will continuously be affected. Uganda will continue reporting high rates of teenage pregnancies and school dropout rates.
Perhaps as a country we need to rethink the implications of such fading norms and practices to health. We may not have to copy the very same way they used to happen but learning something from that and comparing the times to today.
The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) currently has opportunities for Program Associates. The ideal candidates should have commitment to work with a dynamic organization working on issues of Health and Human Rights. The selected candidates bring their professional skill sets and work with one or more of CEHURD’s programs and/or departments for a period of one year with a potential for extension. The candidate will contribute towards the strategic goals of CEHURD.
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2. JOB DESCRIPTION FOR PROGRAM ASSOCIATE COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM.
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In addition, CEHURD is also receiving applications from interested and eligible bidders for Prequalification/ Registration of suppliers for the following goods and services for period 2019-2023. Existing suppliers who wish to be retained MUST apply and submit up-to-date information as requested in this pre-qualification document. Interested and eligible bidders may obtain the pre-qualification application forms from the website www.cehurd.org.
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What does circumcision mean to you? While circumcision is a religious practice for some, for others it is a technique proven to reduce HIV infection and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). For some surgeons in Bugisu, it is the reason they will be coercively tested for HIV this year, a violation of their rights.
In advance of the inaugural Imbalu ceremony on August 11, the Ministry of Health and the cultural institution Inzu Ya Masaba have announced that over 1,000 surgeons will have to undergo HIV tests in order to “safeguard those to be circumcised.” It is not clear what will occur if surgeons are found to be HIV positive. Will they be barred from participating? Will their privacy be protected? It is not clear whether surgeons who are living with HIV will lose business or their livelihood. And it is particularly unclear why they are being forced to get tested for HIV at all, given that no part of the Imbalu ceremony involves surgeons sharing blood or bodily fluids with the boys they will operate on.
Building strong policy at the intersection of health and cultural practice can be complex. According to Article 37 of the Ugandan Constitution, Ugandans have the right to culture, to practice and enjoy cultural languages and traditions. At the same time, according to the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Ugandans have the right to the highest attainable standard of health. These two rights are not in opposition to each other: programs promoting health rights can and should be integrated with cultural practices. In the example of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), FGM was found to be a severe threat to health and women’s rights, and was banned in Uganda in 2010.[1] In enforcing this ban, the Ugandan government found that attempting to eradicate FGM only pushed the practice underground and led to backlash. Instead, preserving the rite of initiation while ending the most violent aspects of the practice was a more effective and sustainable strategy to reduce violence against women.[2] Such strategies allow communities to maintain cultural cohesion along with a high standard of health. They are most effective when paired with strong community engagement and health education, giving community members the tools to make informed choices about their own health.
In the case of Imbalu, the tradition has undergone shifts in the last decade related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2012, New Vision reported that growing numbers of Bagisu boys were getting circumcised in health centers, in order to reduce the risk of HIV transmission, instead of in the Imbalu ceremony.[3] Circumcision does reduce the risk of HIV transmission, but it does not remove the risk entirely, which the government failed to communicate fully: the same year, the Center for Health Journalism reported that individual Bagisu men were forcibly circumcising non-Bagisu men, convinced that they were spreading HIV and STIs to Gishu women.[4] This is a strong example of the value of health education. With an incomplete understanding of HIV transmission, people can draw incorrect conclusions around the stigmatized topic of HIV transmission and commit violence based on them.
Since 2012, there have also been initiatives in place to clean and sterilize knives used in the Imbalu, and a “one knife, one candidate” policy.[5] The “one knife, one candidate policy” drove up the cost of knives, but is an excellent example of a minimal intervention into the Imbalu ceremony that allowed communities to continue a cultural practice in a safer form. This policy is a type of harm reduction, where policymakers make small interventions to an existing activity rather than attempt to drastically change behavior patterns or criminalize whole practices. The Ugandan Harm Reduction Network (UHRN) has advocated for needle and syringe sterilization programs for Injectable Drug Users (IDUs), programs that save lives and money.
If surgeons are careful to operate with clean, sterilized equipment and ensure that they themselves do not have any open wounds, there is no risk of HIV transmission. HIV is transmitted through specific bodily fluids: blood, breast milk, sexual fluids, and mucus.[6] It absolutely cannot be transmitted by a person performing surgery with sterilized surgical tools. The decision to test surgeons is based not in science or best practices in public health, but instead on the stigma surrounding people living with HIV. Once again, it is crucially important to engage in health education to reduce this stigma, the idea that people living with HIV are dangerous or risky.
In truth, it is this stigma that is dangerous. If people associate fear, confusion and discrimination with HIV, they are less likely to seek effective care, protect against HIV transmission, and treat people living with HIV with dignity. People living with HIV are members of our community, and Ugandans everywhere should have the tools to protect against HIV transmission without demonizing people who live with it. HIV tests should be voluntary and consensual, with full assurance of privacy and confidentiality. Surgeons who test positive should be counseled on treatment options and free to continue their work without discrimination, as established by the 2005 Equal Opportunities Commission Act and the 2006 Employment Act in Uganda.
Requiring Imbalu surgeons to be tested for HIV is a counterproductive, discriminatory, and disruptive approach. The Ministry of Health should instead act to promote health rights within cultural practice, scale up programs that ensure clean and sterilized surgical equipment, and encourage comprehensive health education.
All Ugandans have the right to move through the world with privacy, dignity, culture, and the highest attainable standard of health. The young people preparing for the Imbalu in Bugisu deserve to be safe, healthy, make choices about their own bodies, and participate in cultural rites. Similarly, and the surgeons preparing for the ceremony deserve to navigate their HIV status in comfortable and consensual ways. As Uganda navigates the complex challenges of establishing a sound HIV policy in a culturally diverse environment, a focus on human rights, education, and non-discrimination is both sound and humane policy to carry out cultural practices in safe and healthy ways.
Written by Sagaree Jain – Research & Grants Associate at CEHURD
[1]https://ulii.org/ug/legislation/act/2015/5-5
[2]http://www.fahamu.org/mbbc/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Tamale-2007-Right-to-Culture.pdf
[3]https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1311410/imbalu-surgeons-abandon-risky-practises-hiv-surges
[4]https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/2012/07/19/culture-and-male-circumcision-clash-mbale-uganda
[5]https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1311410/imbalu-surgeons-abandon-risky-practises-hiv-surges
[6]https://www.avert.org/learn-share/hiv-fact-sheets/hiv-transmission
According to the 2014 Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; A Rights-Based Approach to Participation. A GI-ESCR Practitioner’s Guide, Every person and all peoples are entitled to active, free and meaningful participation in, contribution to, and enjoyment of development in which human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realized. READ MORE
