THE LAW ON GENDER EQUALITY IN UGANDA A CASE STUDY ON NAKASEKE DISTRICT

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration .................................................................................... i

Approval ....................................................................................... ii

Dedication ..................................................................................... 111

Acknowledgement ........................................................................... .iv

Reviewed legislations ......................................................................... v

Used Bills ...................................................................................... v

Reviewed regional and international instruments ....................................... vi

Table of contents .......................................................................... vii

Abbreviations ........................................................................... ,,,, .. xi

Abstract ....................................................................................... xii

l.O CHAPTER 1: THE LAW ON GENDER EQUALITY IN UGANDA: A CASE STUDY ON NAKASEKE DISTRICT.

1.1 A Brief Profile of N akaseke District. .................................................. 1

1.2 The Background from Gender Inequality to Equality ................................ 1

1.3 The Institution of Land as a Property for Inheritance a Root Cause of Gender Inequality in Uganda ............................................................. 3

1.4 THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK ON GENDER EQUALITY .................... 6

1.4.1 The 1995 Constitution ................................................................. 6

1.4.2 The Succession Act. .................................................................. 8

1.4.3 Customary Laws ....................................................................... 8

1.4.4 Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) ................................................................ 9

1.4.5 Other International Instruments ................................................... 10

1.4.6 The Domestic Relations Bill. ..................................................... .11

1.4.7 Conclusion ............................................................................ 12

1.5 Statement of the Problem ............................................................. 12

1.6 Hypothesis ............................................................................... 13

1.7 Purpose and Objectives of The Study .............................................. .13

1.7.1 Purpose of the study ................................................................ .13

1.7.2 Objectives of the Study ............................................................. 14

1.8 Scope & Concept of the Study ...................................................... .14

1.8.1 Scope of the Study ................................................................... 14

1.8.2 Concept of the Study ................................................................. 15

1.9 Research Methodology ............................................................... 15

CHAPTER II .................................................................................. 19

2.0 Literature Review ....................................................................... 19

3.0 CHAPTER III: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE LEGAL REGIME ON GENDER EQUALITY ................................................................ 32

3.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 32

3.1.1 Natural & Biological Analysis .................................................... 32

3.2 Conceptualization ........................................................................ 3 3

3.3 ANALYZING GENDER EQUALITY & INEQUALITY ................................ 36

3.3.1 Women and Property Inheritance .................................................. 36

3.3.2 Land an asset for human livelihood of all levels ................................ 37

3.3.3 The household as a unit of production ............................................ 38

3.3.4 Acquiring, joint ownership, accessing and tenure of security ofproperty .. 39

3.3.5 Customary Procedure of distributing inherited property ...................... .40

3.3.6 Women's Tenure status ............................................................. 42

3.3.7 Conclusion ............................................................................ 43

4.0 CHAPTER IV: CHALLENGES FACING GENDER EQUALITY

4.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 44

4.2 The Effect of Socialization to Property Inheritance in Uganda ................... 44

4.3 Gender Discrimination in property inheritance as both Structural and institutional factors ............................................................ 45

4.4 The impact of Prevailing traditional attitudes and practices ...................... .45

4.5 Legal procedure for spouses to attain rights on matrimonial property (land) .. .46

4.6 Inefficiency of statutory laws on property inheritance and its enforcement in Nakaseke District ........................................................ 47

4.7 Conclusion ................................................................................ 49

5.O CHAPTER V: FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Findings ................................................................................... 51

5.2 Recommendatons ......................................................................... 60

5.3 Conclusion ................................................................................ 62

5.3 References .. : ............................................................................ 69 

ABSTRACT 

Inequalities on women to property inheritance is a practice protected under the legal framework of Uganda specifically in the 1995 and other statutes which do little, and what is unfortunate, the regional and international instruments of which Uganda as a nation have accession and ratification is not applied. It's notorious under the customary law. The practice has been documented in several reference books in accordance to several ethnic groups in Uganda and it's notorious among Bantu tribes. However, each tribe has customary practices of property inheritance of which is less different from other ethnic tribes because in almost all ethnic groups in Uganda it values a boy child as an affirmed member of the clan than the girl child and somewhere you find that the practice is less alike. I applied all the possible methodologies to explore the justification of the need in which women in Uganda are deprived of the right to property inheritance upon the death of their husbands or fathers. Women Activists and Human Rights Organizations have endeavoured and assiduously tried to advocate for fair laws that justify equality to property inheritance at a gender based in Uganda but failed; then what could be the cause, and their failure to success. The study further tries to harmonize the legal perspective and culturally deep-rooted customary practices relating to property inheritance attitude to change for consideration of women as part to enjoy their rights. Reviewing the existing situation, the research will seek to explain why the practice has been not favoring women up to today despite the several efforts that try curtailing the cultural practices and doing best to come out with a way of harmonizing the two extremes. Equal rights and opportunity functions by invoking the metaphor of everyone being permitted to compete in a race, and based on this assumption, all other factors are usually ignored so long as it can be indicated on the face of things that xii at a given material time, both men and women are equally treated. This implies that past historic disadvantages are ignored and yet these have worked together with other factors to constantly undermine equal development of women and men. Globally, there is an evident correlation between gender inequality, societal poverty, and the failure to respect, protect and fulfill these rights for women. This failure entrenches gender inequality by reinforcing women's dependence on men, and prevents poor countries from finding a sustainable and equitable path to development; but "strengthening women's secure rights to land" can empower them to reach their potential as citizens and as part to economic actors, and enable them to take control over their own lives. In the above view, women's empowerment to inherit and own land, food security and poverty alleviation, may reduce because of such women's economic empowerment, as land can serve as a base for food production and income generation. It's recommendable that expanded equal rights for all women and men alike on land inheritance and in all other spheres of life and must be our goal because it is necessary for development effectiveness and because equality is a core value of human existence. The reason is that the world's strong financial institutions such as the World Bank when they are sure that women have access to [and] control over land and other natural resources they increase on woman's support purposely because they have trust that involvement of women in agricultural production increase on household food security and income in the households, as a result of resource allocation to women this can boost household welfare.