Uganda region uses signed pledges to curb domestic violence

BUNDIBUGYO, Uganda — The drunken man kicked the saucepan off the fireplace, demanding to know why dinner was not ready. Then he struck his wife with a piece of firewood, triggering a fight. They grappled before being separated.

The skit about domestic violence had been staged for the benefit of villagers in western Uganda. Some looked puzzled. Some were amused. But others watched in horror as drama mirrored reality.

Here, in a remote farming community near the border with Congo, domestic violence mostly targets women. Those acting out the skit are not immune.

Eva Bulimpikya, who played a woman who fought back, said her real husband had attacked her the previous night after coming home late.

"He was drunk. From nowhere, he said, 'Can you come and open?' Because I was almost asleep, when I delayed to open he started complaining … Then he slapped me," she said.

Years ago, she said, she was slapped so hard that her hearing was impaired. She still gets headaches.

A local nonprofit group that staged the skit says domestic violence is so widespread in this part of Uganda that it's hard to find a woman who hasn't been affected. The mountainous district of Bundibugyo is about 400 kilometers from the capital, Kampala.

Representatives of the group, Ourganda, affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said they were compelled to act in 2022 when they encountered a woman and her child who had been attacked by her drunken partner. The child's head had swollen, and his mother worried he might die.

Ourganda led efforts to prosecute the offender, who was jailed for six months and is now on peaceful terms with his wife. The rare prosecution energized locals and launched the group's campaign to fight what it saw as the normalization of domestic violence. At the time, 47 of 50 women it surveyed in Bundibugyo said they had experienced violence in the previous week.

The group, working in 10 villages, focuses on instilling fear in offenders as much as educating them. An accused perpetrator is asked to sign a "reconciliation form" in which they pledge never to commit the same offense.

Signing the form prevents an escalation that might lead to police involvement, but the form is also kept as evidence for possible prosecution if the agreement is breached, said Vincent Tibesigwa Isimbwa, Ourganda's leader in Bundibugyo. Only five of about 100 people have violated the agreement so far, he said.

An expert on gender-based violence in Uganda, Angella Akoth of ActionAid Uganda, said such work targeting perpetrators is recommended, calling it "male engagement strategy."

The men who separated the fighting couple in the skit were members of a real-life "Mankind Club," one of many set up by Ourganda to respond as quickly as possible to outbreaks of violence. Thomas Balikigamba, a local man who was jailed for six months over domestic abuse, said he warns others of the harshness of incarceration. "In our drinking points, I always tell members of our group that it is very bad to fight at home," he said.

The women who sat around the couple were described as "Soul Sisters," with the role of counseling women or offering them shelter and clothing when they are kicked out of their homes.

Men who are "bleeding internally" — a euphemism for women-on-men violence — are also encouraged to seek support, Isimbwa said: "Any form of violence, we should not tolerate it."

Domestic violence is a global curse. World Health Organization figures from 2021 show that one in three women worldwide has been subjected to some form of it. In Uganda, a 2020 survey by U.N.-backed local authorities found that 95% of women and girls had experienced physical or sexual violence, or both, after turning 15.

Isimbwa said he has been threatened by some locals for trying to empower women. But Ourganda aims to take its work to more villages and "create rapport" with local officials who make or break efforts to prosecute offenders, he said.

"We have created more awareness in communities. Now people tend to know what they are supposed to do. They try their level best to make sure that they don't violate other people's rights," he said.

Many in Bundibugyo who spoke to The Associated Press said domestic violence is often sparked by financial disputes and disagreements over sex — quarrels that can be intensified by alcoholism and illiteracy.

Most cases are never prosecuted. Out of 2,194 cases of teenage pregnancy in 2023 — a broad category that encompasses some forms of domestic violence — only 54 were reported to the police in Bundibugyo, said Pamela Grace Adong, the district's probation and social welfare officer. Bundibugyo is home to around 20,000 people.

"It is now going up," she said of gender-based violence. "For example, last year we got around 575 cases … But this year – this is now June – we have around 300."

Ourganda's mediation work helps to police communities, she said.

In the town of Sara-Kihombya, a collection of mud houses across from the Seventh-day Adventist church run by Ourganda, many men congregate in bars in the morning and stay the whole day.

Domestic violence is said to rise between October and February, peak season for harvesting the cocoa plants dotting the volcanic soil. Some couples fight over how to share the earnings, many residents said.

If a man returns home from selling cocoa and the woman asks for some money, "that is war," said Linda Kabugho, a kindergarten teacher who said that until recently she was repeatedly attacked by her husband.

The 23-year-old Kabugho, who dropped out of secondary school when she became pregnant in 2022, said she would fight with her husband when he came home feeling miserable over his soccer betting losses. "He brings all the anger on me," she said. "We fight, we fight, we fight."

Last year she reached out to local officials who introduced her to Ourganda. The couple were counseled by a group of Soul Sisters, and she is now one of them. The man was warned he risked going to jail if he beat his wife again.

Kabugho said her husband had not beaten her in many months, and she thinks of him as a responsible man.

"A least now I can sleep. I can eat very well," she said. "We are somehow safe, and I am somehow safe."