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Ensuring a Safe Working Environment For Female Journalists in Uganda

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Every year, on 08th March the world over celebrates Women’s day in the commemoration of the achievements as well as struggles of women. In line with this year’s theme,” Iam generation equality: realizing women’s rights”, Women Human Rights Defenders Network Uganda engaged with the female journalists under the theme The need to allow women journalists to work in a safe environment and speak up about harassment they face in their line of work.

The Women Human Rights Defenders Network-Uganda reflected on the role played by female journalists as human rights defenders with a clear emphasis on the their working conditions of discrimination, impunity and human rights violence that puts their lives at risk.

The training provided a platform for the female journalists to share experiences they go through while doing their work. This created visibility for the human rights violations they are subjected to while in the field.

The training sought to create space for female journalists as frontline defenders for human rights, with a clear focus on the gender specific attacks and share support systems where women human rights defenders at risk can be supported. Much as they are called upon to do their work, it exposes them to numerous risks and intimidations because they use mainstream media and social media to report on contentious issues such as corruption, crimes, human rights violations in elections, sexual violence, human rights violations and so much more.

Brenda Kugonza, the executive Director, Women Human Rights Defenders Network Uganda (WHRDN-U) urged the journalists to be vigilant with the environment they work in because they are always at risk.

“Because of the work they do, in Uganda Women Journalists face specific dangers, vulnerable to sexual harassment. They have had to deal with hateful comments directed to their appearance, gender and sexuality. These attacks and intimidations against them, have in some cases silenced them and blocked them from disseminating news yet their absence in the media has serious implications in the free and democratic media,”. says Kugonza.

On that note, stake holders were called upon to uphold fundamental rights so as to enable journalists to have a safe and secure working environment.

Protection is key

Brenda Kugonza advised the journalists to always seek for help from organisations that offer journalist protection, move with first Aid kits, with contraceptives and PREP for just in case something happened to them while in the field.

For protection the Women Human Rights Defenders Network Uganda gave the journalists a list of support services that exist for female journalists and advised them to make use of them or even share with their colleagues because they may need it for protection.

Just like Brenda Kugonza, Margret Ssentamu, the director of Uganda Media Women’s Association advised the journalists to protect themselves at all times and she told them to be well informed with the law for instance they should know their rights, entitlement, where to get services and what the law says about their work so that they are not caught off guard.

Margret Ssentamu advised the journalists to follow their work ethics while doing their stories because that is one of the protection measures they can use.

The risks highlighted at the event

The journalists present also raised concerns of facing sexual harassment at their work places, some are being asked for sex in order to retain their jobs, being used as baits to get some information from the male sources, their work mates using gender stereo types to attack them which in most cases has silenced them.

They further shared the experiences they have had while in the field doing work for instance some of them are intimidated when they chose to report on sensitive issues, blackmail from politicians, being raped by their colleagues while at the field being beaten and also having their items confiscated when in line of their duty.

With all that happening to the female journalists, the journalist requested the network to always have such trainings for them so that they can be empowered, they asked the network to do follow ups just to know how they are doing, to pay regional visits so that there can be regular engagements and they also decided to remain in contact with them.

  • The journalists urged each other to create friendship so that they can be united.
  • The journalists said they should get to know each other so that they can interact so well especially when they meet.
  • The journalists said they should share contacts with each other for easy communication.
  • The journalists said they should enhance the visibility of the attacks they face.

Ms Brenda Kugonza, Named Human Rights Defender of the Month

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Our Executive Director Brenda was named Human Rights Defender of the month November 2019 by Defend Defenders, an organisation that seeks to protect and strengthen human rights defenders in East Africa and horn of Africa sub region. We are deeply honored as an organization to also be recognized by our works and are more than motivated to pursue justice for all Women Human Rights defenders in Uganda.

States’ responsibility towards the protection of women human rights defenders

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UN Headquarters, New York 26 July 2018

Panelists/moderators:

Ivana Radačić, Chair, UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice
Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
Andrew Gilmore, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Head of OHCHR New York Office
Lolita Chavez, Council of the Kiché People (Consejo de Pueblos Kiché Guatemala)
Lydia Alpizar, Mesoamerican Women Defenders Initiative
Brenda Kugonza, Uganda Women Human Rights Defenders Network (Uganda)
Asha Kowtal, All India Dalit Women’s Rights Forum (India)
Marusia Lopez, Jass (Just Associates)
Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International
Alda Facio, UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice
Pooja Patel, International Service for Human Rights
Miriam Miran, OFRANEH (Honduras)
Mélanie Sonhaye Kombate, West-African Human Rights Defenders Network (Togo)

____________________________________

Main issues raised:

Participants called attention to the particular situation of risks and vulnerability faced by women human rights defenders (WHRDs), especially those working on environmental issues, the rights of minorities, including indigenous and dalit people, LGBTI rights, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs). Specific challenges facing WHRDs include: physical assaults, denial of medical treatment, degrading searches, threats to their families and communities, public defamation and attacks against their “honor”, media attacks against their physical appearance, arbitrary detention, sexual and gender-based violence, and killings. WHRDs are also at risk of being rejected by their communities and of being revictimized if they report acts of violence.

All panelists and several other WHRDs from the Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia and Spain attending the event testified about the challenges they have encountered as WHRDs. These range from structural gender-based discrimination, surveillance, breaking in, criminalization and arrests, to kidnappings and assassination attempts.

Overall, participants insisted on the need to address the growing impact of religious extremism and corporations (in particular extractive industries) on WHRDs. Calls were also issued to tackle the structural causes of discrimination against women, regressive trends with regards to the rights of women (particularly through the rise of an anti-rights discourse in Eastern-Europe and Latin-America), the shrinking of civil society space as well as sexism and misogyny, including within the human rights movement. In this regard, participants underscored the need to adopt an intersectional approach to the protection of WHRDs, tackle impunity and ensure that risk analysis and protection mechanisms include a gender perspective. There were also calls for bottom-up, creative and long-term mechanisms aimed at better protecting WHRDs.

Serious concerns were expressed about the record number of reprisals against WHRDs in 2017 which led to the UN’s growing engagement in the protection of WHRDs against reprisals, including the SG annual report on cooperation with the UN, more frequently referred to as the “reprisals report”. For the first time, this report will be presented to the Human Rights Council. Reference was made to OHCHR’s important contribution in ensuring the inclusion of WHRDs in the Outcome Document of the 2018 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Key recommendations for States:

Recognize and support the work of WHRDs, in particular by granting political and legal recognition to their work
Recognize that WHRDs include women working for NGOs, labor rights, land rights, cultural rights, SRHRs, collective rights and grassroots movements
Strengthen protection mechanisms and programs by:
Adopting legislations, policies and programs focused on eliminating the structural causes of violence against WHRDs
Preventing, investigating and punishing the perpetrators of abuse and violence
Ensuring that the implementation of provisions for protection, redress and remedy adopt an intersectional approach
Ensuring that protection legislations and mechanisms do not re-victimize WHRDs
Reviewing and repealing policies and practices that are not in line with international human rights standards, including laws that restrict CSOs space
Ensuring the financial sustainability of protection programs
Domesticating the UN Declaration on HRDs
Ensuring that official protection mechanisms do not contradict or hinder the holistic, spiritual, and collective protection practices and measures that WHRDs depend on
Ensuring that legislations, policies or legal frameworks do not use personal and privileged information from or about WHRDs and their organizations
Strengthen access to justice and end impunity by:
Accelerating investigations for cases of violence against WHRDs
Ensuring that investigations are free from sexist and misogynistic prejudices and stereotypes
Ensuring that investigations integrate an analysis of the context, the patterns of attacks and the socio-environmental conflicts that frame those attacks
Holding public officials, media, religious, cultural, community and business leaders accountable for attacking, defaming, inciting violence and stigmatizing women
Enforcing stringent measures against state armed forces that harm or inflict violence on HRDs
Strengthening the proactive role of independent public human rights and judicial institutions in the prevention and investigation of violence against WHRDs
Training officials, especially those in the judicial and penal system
Creating mechanisms that ensure that political appointments, promotions to public office or advancement of political careers take officials’ histories in relation to WHRDs into account
Ending extractive, agro-industrial, infrastructural and hydro-energy projects that were started without the free and informed consent of affected communities
Strengthen the implementation by States of their human rights obligations
Improve the coherence between international instruments
Invite UN Special Rapporteurs and other Special Mechanisms for visits
Facilitate cooperation between regional and international levels

Key recommendations for UN entities:
Strengthen technical assistance provided to States to implement UN recommendations
Adopt an intersectional approach to HRDs in all aspects of the Organization’s work
Ensure effective follow-up, implementation and accountability in collaboration with regional human rights mechanisms
Strengthen the participation of WHRDs in UN bodies, processes, meetings, country visits, etc.
Ensure a safe space for CSOs at the UN and denounce all acts of reprisals at the highest level
Strengthen country-level coordination amongst UN entities in supporting the implementation of UN recommendations
Monitor the adoption and implementation of legislations that legitimize or criminalize WHRDs
Adopt a holistic approach to protection measures
Urge private companies to improve how they identify, address and prevent violence and abuse against HRDs

SOURCE : https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WGWomen/Pages/StatesResponsibilityTowardsProtection.aspx

It is not time to give up – Uganda Women Human Rights Defender – Brenda Kugonza

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In February 2019, UN Human Rights launched a campaign to promote the work of Women Human Rights Defenders across the world as part of the commemoration of International Women’s Day 2019. Campaign #ISTANDWITHHER showcases women human rights defenders and expresses support for their work. In Uganda, we took interest in a Women Human Rights Defender who has done a lot in promoting human rights in general and those of women in particular, as well as defending those who stand for these rights. Enjoy our interview with Brenda Kugonza, #WHRD and member of the steering committee of the Women Human Rights Defenders Network of Uganda #WHRDNU, who stresses that it “is not time to give up – our results are enough to inspire us to keep going”

Question: Brenda thank you for sharing your experiences with us. Could you tell us more about yourself, and your work as a human rights defender?

Answer: I am from Uganda and I am a feminist. I have done a lot of work in promoting women’s rights and gender equality. My experience cuts across mobilizing communities to prevent domestic violence, and carrying out national policy advocacy campaigns on women’s rights issues. I spearheaded a coalition of more than 25 civil society organizations in Uganda to campaign for a law on domestic violence and I am glad that the law was finally passed. In other words, thanks to this campaign, Uganda has a law on domestic violence. I have also been involved in promoting women’s social and economic rights and worked with the Forum for African Women Educationist to educate and support girls to stay in school, especially at the university level. While working for the Council for Economic Empowerment of Women in Africa, Uganda Chapter, I was part of the team that promoted women’s economic empowerment by engaging microfinance institutions to mainstream gender in project financing. My experience as an expert in gender analysis, gender mainstreaming, gender-based violence and advocacy makes me a passionate promoter and defender of women’s human rights.

Question: You sound so passionate and assured about this role. Has it all been a bed of roses?

Answer: Because I grew up facing injustices as a girl, I am driven by the passion to change things. Otherwise, looking at the challenges, I would have given up. That is to say, the challenges are enormous, especially given the patriarchal nature of our society. In such a system where society promotes male supremacy and female subordination, the issues of the power imbalance between men and women become a serious problem, so much so that where ever you go, you have to face it, being constantly reminded that as a woman you are expected to stay in your subordinate position.

Question: Can you give us some examples of women you have succeeded to convince in joining you in this course?

Answer: It will interest you to know that I started working specifically on the protection of WHRDs besides the regular promotion and protection work I do. The reason is that as a WHRD, you are labelled as an activist, a person who is promoting foreign values, a person who is tearing families apart etc. You face isolation, discrimination and threats and even people close to you tell you such things as “hey Brenda, why can’t you stop this kind of negative activism?”. Some of us have been blackmailed, defamed and have faced a lot of hostility. However, WHRDs have been doing a lot of positive and important work, and within our network, we have been providing counselling, legal support, we have looked after orphans and vulnerable children, supported widows, victims of GBV, just to mention a few. Some of us are involved in promoting civil and political rights of women. However, as women, doing such things as promoting land rights, engaging in anti-corruption campaigns, civic education etc. attracts many bottlenecks by way of restrictions on how we mobilize, organize and engage. Community members, religious leaders, government officials, the wider public, and the media have yet to fully incorporate the notion of women standing up for human rights. WHRDs are in essence serving the community and protecting so many people from human rights violations. However, to many people, this is a no go area for women. For this reason, it has taken me so much time to get women involved in human rights promotion and protection to understand that they are WHRDs. I am happy that despite the stereotypes society places on this kind of work, the WHRD Network Uganda (WHRDNU) has grown enormously in a very short time.

Question: What concretely are some of these challenges and how are you mitigating them?

Answer: WHRDs have faced arrests for holding peaceful demonstrations, their offices have been broken into and equipment destroyed, many have faced defamation in public and others have experienced restrictions for sharing information through publications and radio programmes. This was what triggered the discussion in 2015 on creating the WHRDNU. I am happy to say that after the launch of the Network in 2018, we already have 52 WHRDs from different organizations and geographic areas around the country engaging and harnessing strategies to not only promote human rights but also to protect those who work tirelessly and fearlessly to promote human rights. In the recent past, we have referred cases concerning WHRD to existing protection mechanisms, and some of the victims have received relocation, counselling, psycho-social and other support, such as replacement of destroyed office equipment. We have also provided WHRDs with tools on security management. We have established sub-regional human rights defenders network to address the challenges we face, and to support WHRDs whose stories we rarely hear, but who are doing some incredible work in the rural areas with limited means and at times no access to information. These networks exist in Karamoja, Acholi and Albertine regions. It is worth noting that some WHRDs who have faced attacks are those denouncing the activities of mining companies, and speaking out against the violation of rights of indigenous peoples. This also includes journalists who because of their investigative reports have faced enormous challenges.

Question: There has been a lot of talk about International Women’s Day and how it is marked in Africa. What would you say is the added value of this day to women’s human rights?

Answer: We must recognize the international nature of this day and think beyond what the local cultures and traditions hold, or the way some people have made this day to seem. It remains an initiative to pay attention to women as full human beings, so I strongly think that the day has its value: It is a global day of advocacy for women’s rights. If unfortunately this is forgotten at times in the general debate and activities organized, I think it remains an opportunity to look at key issues such as maternal health, girl child education and dropouts rates because of lack of sanitary pads etc. What about the situation of women who are the poorest amongst the poor? Thinking about women’s day to me is thinking of how we as a nation are fulfilling the rights of women. This to me is the main discourse as far as the day is concerned and it should involve everyone, not only women. It is not a day when, as I hear many say men are going to do the cooking. I think that is all but a joke meant to undermine the important role women should play in society. It should not be a day to amplify the gender roles for women.

Question: What is your opinion about WHRDs? If you were given the opportunity, considering your experiences, is there anything you would do differently today?

Answer: WHRDs have trained and mentored women and men at all levels to understand women’s rights. It is because of this that WHRDs through their work have been able to create a movement of male allies. It is important that both work together to improve the protection of human rights in general and women’s human rights in particular. Regarding what I would do differently if I had the opportunity and the resources, one thing that would change this whole system that creates injustice and discrimination, especially against women and girls, would be to start talking about women’s rights in schools and to do so from the very early stages. Had we started this long ago, the story would be different. I remember when I was in school, it was the widely held belief that the head of the family is a man. Moreover, even when you are living with a single mother and you say the head of your family is your mother; you will earn yourself across. Education on women’s rights starting from basic education would greatly change the notion and understanding people have about women’s rights. Having said that, I still think that despite the odds, WHRDs have achieved a lot. Patriarchy has been there for many years, it is deeply rooted and whatever we do, wherever we go, we will be fighting with power-related issues. Despite this, it is not time to give up. Our results are enough to inspire us to keep going.
Source : https://uganda.ohchr.org/Story/Details/18