Prime
Emancipation a right for all women
Author: Joseph Ochieno.
What you need to know:
- In honouring women and mothers who influence society, this letter is not about Mama Miria alone, but women who have made net impact in the lives of other women and girl-children and helped build this nation.
On the eve of Women’s Day last week, I received a flier containing women who have impacted on this country. It was set for the day. Mama Miria Kalule Obote was missing. Mama Miria is the mother of this nation. That is official. She has been First Lady twice. She is the only First Lady to have initially entered State House following the democratic election of her husband.
Mama Miria is also the first woman in Africa to have been democratically elected in her own right as president of an independence party, Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC). As founder member of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), UPC is among few of those parties that still exists.
For any woman of note who has not met Mama Miria, I strongly suggest they do. For the young girls particularly, I strongly encourage them to do so.
Extremely articulate, she is among the most elegant women ever produced in this country, yet exemplarily modest. With tanks of experience, she is also most knowledgeable.
In honouring women and mothers who influence society, this letter is not about Mama Miria alone, but women who have made net impact in the lives of other women and girl-children and helped build this nation.
Mama Miria, for instance, talks fondly about her own contributions and resultant deliberate UPC efforts to promote the welfare and education of the girl-child way back in the 1960s that translated into policy drives and investments with rapid and quality construction of girl schools such as Wanyange, Nabinsunsa, Tororo, Christ the King and the expansion of the likes of Bweranyanje Girls, among many.
While focus was on education (the most important equaliser), young women who joined civil service were fast-tracked with the likes of Elizabeth Bitamazire (RIP) counted here.
Jobs, fair wages and acceptable working conditions, food security, clean water and energy efficiency. Top up with infant and maternal mortality then, you will at last be talking women emancipation.
At a recent inter-university debate in which I was a judge, a young woman told me of her shattered life time ambition to become a medical doctor to save lives after narrowly missing the cut-off points.
While both her parents work, their salaries are insufficient for private tuition. Now studying a course which is better than getting married for the headlines, she claimed many of her peers have gone on to do medicine simply because their posh parents can afford.
But while this young lady is at least at university, my heart still struggles for the girls at Kisoko High School, Tororo, started by UPC in 1982. It was to have been built, staffed, stocked and equipped to Ntare School standards by 1991.
Instead last month, after 36 years of NRA/M in power, a story run in a national daily that more than 100 female students queue up for one pit-latrine. The area MP’s response was to rally around parents, school administration and alumni to take responsibility.
I read elsewhere from my good friend Tony Akaki that Mama Miria, Prof Mary Okwakol, Ms Mary Oduka-Onen were, among others, women who pushed government to start marking March 8 as Women’s Day first in 1984 and then in 1985.
We must celebrate women and mothers when they are national leaders, not slots; when they are majority CEOs, not tokens; when they are land owners, not beggars; not routine victims of domestic violence and child marriages; and yes, when pads and, not condoms, are free. It is possible. Just believe in better.
The writer is a pan-Africanist
Twitter: @Ochieno
