Ntenga gives World Bank advice on gender violence

In primary school at Mugusu in Kabarole District between 1989 and 1993 from Primary One to Primary Five, Moses Ntenga recalls seeing a number of his girl classmates dropping out of school due to early pregnancy. When he joined Bulembia School for Primary Six and Primary Seven, memories of girls at his former school who quit school to work as housemaids equally occupied his mind. When he joined secondary school at St Leo’s College in 1996, he learnt that some of them had got married.

That was when the need to change the livelihood of children in his community was birthed. And in 2005, shortly after graduating, Ntenga formed Joy For Children Uganda (JFCU), an advocacy and action centre. The organisation’s mandate is to ensure that children are cared for, have a right to access education and are protected from all sorts of abuse. It was while serving as the organisation’s executive director that Ntenga was appointed by the President of the World Bank, Dr Jim Yong, to serve on the Bank’s newly formed task force on gender-based violence across the world on October 13, 2016.

The soft-spoken Ntenga is humbled that his efforts in fighting for gender equity have not been in vain. He says the nod from the World Bank notwithstanding, his organisation is determined to work for the improvement of the livelihood of the vulnerable.

Ntenga and his organisation were instrumental in highlighting issues of exploitation and sexual violence against children. The action resulted in positive advancements including a new focus on children and women in World Bank’s policies and policy reviews by other international agencies. The taskforce will strengthen the Bank’s response through its projects to issues involving sexual exploitation and abuse.

Roles
“As a member of the task force, I will be working with the bank to review some of the documents and give recommendations on what can be done to address gender based violence not only in Uganda but the world over,” 36-year-old Ntenga says.

As part of a seven member team, Ntenga, through meetings and teleconferencing will be responsible for reviewing documents on gender inclusion and how it can be achieved. “One of the things I work against is the issue of child marriage and this is for girls who get married off before their 18th birthday which is contrary to the law. When a girl gets pregnant, they stop schooling. After giving birth, they have challenges such as who to leave the baby with yet at the same time they have to play the role of a mother, inadvertently they abandon school. It makes their lives vulnerable and that means the influence they have at family level is limited,” he explains.

Ntenga says his organisation has proved that children below the age of 15 contribute to 40 per cent of child marriages in Uganda.
A 2013 World Vision study ranked Uganda 16th among 25 countries with the highest rate of child marriages, with 12 per cent of girls marrying before they have reached the age of 15 and 46 per cent being married off before they turn 18.
Ntenga is the only Ugandan on the taskforce while some of his colleagues are from Burundi and USA.

About the policy
The taskforce is reviewing the environmental social framework of the World Bank that will soon be rolled out to other countries. It focuses on how people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups will be protected.
Ntenga says children will also be consulted about how gender based violence affects them and their views about how they can be protected.

Why gender based violence
Several legal and policy reform against gender violence and discrimination such as the Domestic Violence Act, 2010, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, the amendments to police form 3 and 3A have also been passed. But many of these remain on paper.
GBV, in particular sexual and physical violence, is widespread in Uganda and is mainly committed against women and girls. While the 2011/2012 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) indicated a slight decrease in physical violence from 69.9 per cent (UDHS 2006) to 56.1 per cent (UDHS 2011).

About Joy for Children

The organisation focuses on ensuring that children are cared for, have a right to access education and are protected from all sorts of abuse. In most communities, Ntenga says there are children who do not go to school although there are government schools.

Because of such factors, there are little girls who are married off early, corporal punishments in schools and homes and the issue of child neglect. There are also scenarios of couples having children and one of them is not willing to take care of them.

Currently, Joy For Children Uganda coordinates the Girls Not Brides alliance, a national coalition on ending child marriage and has more than 60 members. Through this alliance, he is able to reach different parts of the country and bring up collective advocacy mechanisms.

Hope Nankunda Mwijuka, Executive Director, Health Promotions and Rights watch Uganda, an organisation that works in the same field as Joy for Children says, “He tirelessly advocates the rights of children. As the chairman of Girls Not Brides alliance, he works and interacts with all the 60 member organisation of the alliance that work towards ending child marriage and teenage pregnancy in Uganda. His appointment on the World Bank task force to fight gender based violence worldwide is good news that will benefit many Ugandan women and girls from his representation,”