Stripping won’t protect your land, minister tells women
Mr Daudi Migereko
KAMPALA-In light of recent events that sparked a wave of women stripping naked to protect their land, the Minister of Lands, Mr Daudi Migereko, has urged them to instead get customary land titles called certificate of customary ownership (CCOs).
While opening a conference on women land rights on Thursday in Kampala, Mr Migereko said even if women strip naked, the nudity cannot help them solve their land problems.
“Nudity is not the answer; there are other better ways of resolving women’s land issues other than undressing. In the past women undressing in public was a taboo and it was often used to scare men as a curse. The efficacy of such measures during these times is questionable. What works is legal papers.
For example, had they had CCOs, this would not have been an issue,” Mr Migereko explained during the conference organised by Action Aid Uganda in Kampala.
However, Ms Josephine Ahikire, the dean of women and gender department at Makerere University, said information on how to acquire CCO’s is not clear to the lay women, especially in rural areas.
“I once asked a woman when she last went to the district headquarters and she told me she didn’t have any problem with her husband. This shows that even seeking legal procedures to legally possess land to these women is not known to them,” she said.
She added that the need by the women in Amuru District to strip showed their desperation of keeping their land.
“Stripping was a desperate measure because they felt it was the only thing left for them to do and in the end it compelled government to reach an agreement and their land was spared unlike that in Mubende District which today has been sealed off,” Ms Ahikire said.
