Indigenous Women: The Strength of Our Communities
Conservation and Food Sovereignty Efforts in Uganda Indigenous Women Lead
Gertrude Kenyangi (Batwa)
T
hey live hundreds of miles apart but share a common destiny: they are the women of the Batwa, Tepeth, Ik, and Benet Indigenous communities of Uganda. All are mountain dwellers living on the fringes of forests they once called home. They and their families were forcefully displaced without compensation. Yet, these communities have strong economic, cultural, and spiritual connections to those lands, which have not been fully granted by the protected area management regimes. Rendered homeless in their own home, ethnic minorities including Indigenous Peoples in Uganda lack access to and control of productive assets, especially land. Being an Indigenous woman myself, I have had to struggle to get a meaningful education. I have had to work in homes of dominant communities, I have been present when our homes in the forest were torched. I have shed tears. The Constitution of the Republic of Uganda does not recognize Indigenous Peoples as a distinct group of people. There is a gap between the manner in which the Ugandan government perceives the term Indigenous Peoples and the manner in which it is employed by the UN agencies and the African Commission. To recognize the multi-ethnicity of the country, the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda defines Indigenous Peoples as the 65 ethnic groups that were existing by February 1, 1926. The African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities identifies Indigenous Peoples as Peoples whose “cultures and ways of life differ considerably from the dominant society and [whose] cultures are under threat, in some cases to the point of extinction.” Indigenous Peoples in Uganda suffer discrimination as they are regarded as less developed and less advanced than other, more dominant sectors of society. They often live in
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inaccessible regions, are geographically isolated, and suffer from various forms of marginalization, both politically and socially. They are subjected to domination and exploitation within national political and economic structures that are commonly designed to reflect the interests and activities of the national majority. This discrimination and marginalization not only violates the human rights of Indigenous Peoples, but also threatens the continuation of their cultures and ways of life and prevents them from being able to genuinely participate in decisions regarding their own future and forms of development. In spite of the common injustice faced by Indigenous Peoples, the women of these communities function under yet another discriminatory governance system: patriarchy. They are barred from accessing forest resources by the modern government and constrained by traditional norms, values, and beliefs from having rights to make decisions regarding household resources. When asked how easy it is to manage life as an Indigenous woman, Janet of the Benet Indigenous People had this to say: “It is a multiple tragedy. Everyone, including our own men and the government, takes advantage of us. Even as adults, we cannot do anything without asking for permission. The Bamasaaba (neighboring dominant community) take us as subhuman in public.” Since the first Rio Conference on Sustainable Development in 1992, many Indigenous men have lost the prestigious position of breadwinner and have suffered a blow to their masculine identities. As men drown their frustration in alcohol, they subject their women and children to domestic violence. When asked how they survive since being forcefully displaced from their forest homes, Dina Nyirarukundo, a woman of the Batwa Indigenous people responded, “We sneak back into the forest to harvest fruits, tubers, honey, and other foods. When we are caught, we are beaten and sometimes imprisoned.
