The dark days of women on the streets   

Lucy Nangiro begs money from one of the drivers in traffic jam along Kampala Road. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

Every 26th day of the month or there about, a menstrual puzzle to solve befalls Lucy Nangiro, 25. She is a street woman, surviving on the chaotic Kampala streets through begging. 

The unforgiving process that no woman looks forward to, however keeps her awake to harsh reality that she has to cope with month-in-month-out. 

“When that time comes, there is a lot of stomach pain [crumps]. I can hardly stand,” Nangiro, who fends a living through begging off Kampala Road, says, tightening the straps holding a slightly one-year-old baby on her back. 

Three years ago, she fled “unbearable hunger” in Moroto District, in the Karamoja sub-region to become a beggar on the streets of Kampala. 

“I pick old clothes that I tear into small folding to use,” she says in reference to her menstrual flow, “It is not easy in Kampala where there are many people who will see your blood.” 

The challenges of menstruation, a sensitive subject in Uganda, are not isolated to any category of women; they eat up all groups of women but mostly batters rural and poor women.  

Several studies have shown that girls in rural Uganda miss up to eight days of study each school term.

Dr Stella Nyanzi, a Makerere University researcher propped this subject, albeit in a controversial manner, when she attacked President Yoweri Museveni for backtracking on a  campaign promise to provide sanitary towels to school-going children in order to keep them in school. 

A woman with her baby trying to beg money from taxi passengers along Kampala Road. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

The controversial researcher was arrested and charged for computer misuse and was later remanded for several days in Luzira Prison. 

The case is still ongoing but some civil society activists have applauded Dr Nyanzi for bringing a back-door subject to the fore of the country’s discussion agenda with the view of assisting those suffering silently. 

“My worst day was when my child told me I had blood. She thought something had cut my buttocks,” Joy Logiel, who also begs on the streets of Kampala, says. 

“I never expected it that day and I only had knickers,” she adds. 

According to Dr Vincent Karuhanga, of Friends Polyclinic in Kampala, tackling the problem of menstruation among street beggars is a challenging task because “most of them do not have knickers so, even if government provided pads, they have to provide knickers too”.   

“They risk many infections because they pick dirty clothes or pads,” he says, emphasizing that these present them with pubic skin infections, urinal track or vaginal infections. 

“What helps them is that when one is bleeding, that blood washes away some bacteria,” he adds. 

Ministry of Gender Permanent Secretary Pius Bigirimana, acknowledges the challenges of street women but says these can only be assisted through “tackling the push and pull factors” that attract them to the streets of Kampala. 

“It is impossible to avail sanitary towels to them. We do not know where they stay,” he says, adding, “What we are doing is to take them back to their homes such that they can benefit from government programmes.”

The programmes include the Shs265b Youth Livelihood Programme launched in 2014, which seeks to improve household income through supporting businesses.

Others are the Shs43b Uganda Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme, channelled through the Ministry of Gender that fights poverty among women in Uganda, among others.

However, the challenges remains with how government can take them back as many such as Logiel, have never thought of going back to where they came from. 

“The situation there [Moroto] is very hard. All the time there is hunger. It is better I stay here they laugh at me but when I can get what to get,” she says. 

Some civil society organisations such as Plant International and SNV-Netherlands Development Organisation have taught school going school how to make pads but for Logiel and other street women, dirty cloths remains their uncomfortable their only choice.