UWOPA coating male MPs to support Marriage and divorce Bill

Ms Egunyu said they are now recruiting men to help them on the Marriage and Divorce Bill, noting that they had stopped on Clause 23 and hope to have something by the time the Bill is returned to the floor of Parliament.

Female Members of Parliament under their umbrella- Uganda Women Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) are coating their male counterparts to support the retabling of the Marriage and Divorce Bill.

Ms Veronica Eragu Bichetero (Kaberamaido County) made the revelation while addressing delegations of Woman MPs from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The meeting on exchange and exposure visit that was held at Parliament was organised by Women International Peace Centre (WIPC) with an aim of helping women leaders in other countries in conflict or in post conflict to learn from Uganda on women empowerment.

Ms Bichetero said that the reason legislations fronted by women movements in many countries fail is because the men are not involved from the start hence creating a situation of fear among them.

“As UWOPA, we are now recruiting men to help us on the Marriage and Divorce Bill. We stopped on Clause 23 and when we return it (to the floor of Parliament) we will have something different,” she said.

Ms Bichetero who shared a lot of experience on how Uganda has empowered women through 35 percent representation on Cabinet, in Parliament, local government councils through affirmative action and the establishment of women councils; encouraged the visiting women leaders to always engage their male counterparts in whatever they do if they are to achieve their goals.

This she said after MPs from both South Sudan and DRC shared touching experiences of how men have dominated political leadership in their countries.

The Marriage and Divorce Bill, 2009 that was tabled by government was abandoned by the 9th Parliament after it became controversial with mostly the men rejecting some of the clauses which they said favoured women.

The DRC woman MPs despite revealing that there are new reforms in the law under the current leadership of President Felix Tshisekedi, raised concern on how women are not yet raised to the same parity with men. They revealed that, the women representation at all levels of leadership is now at about 20 percent, with the current Speaker of the National Parliament being the biggest achievement.

Ms Soriri Muhingirwa one of the Congolese MPs, said that they were in Uganda to seek knowledge on how to influence policy making so that they are pro-women empowerment.

“We are happy to see that women in Uganda have come up at all levels. In DRC, we have now modified the law concerning participation of women in politics. The problem we have now is how to influence other policies,” she said.

The South Sudanese team revealed that there are hindrances on women to grow in leadership citing a case of their Cabinet which has had the same women who were appointed in 2005. They also revealed that there is no affirmative action for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and youth representatives in the country’s political structure.

The WIPC’s Board Chairperson, Ms Elizabeth Lwanga said that only seven of the 24 countries assessed on women representation by the African Union office of the Special Envoy for Women, have met the global target of 30 percent women representation in parliaments.

These are, Uganda, Tunisia, South Africa, Senegal, Rwanda, Mozambique and Burundi.

“Rwanda is still leading globally with 61.3 percent female representation in its Lower House of Parliament. Unfortunately, majority of the countries in the study, that is 58 percent of 14 of the 24 countries have less than 20 percent of female representation in Parliaments, as of April 1,” Said Ms Lwanga.

Some of the key takeaways the Ugandan women parliamentarians gave to their visiting counterparts are; promoting girl child education, advocating for end of “bad” cultural practices that step on women empowerment; involving male leaders in legislations aimed at gender equality, and, tasking appointing authorities to consider more women for top jobs in government.