GONE ARE THE DAYS WHEN SCHOOL RELATED GENDER BASED VIOLENCE WENT UNNOTICED Baguma Filbert Bates UNATU (Uganda National Teachers Union)
I am currently the General Secretary of Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU). I was born in Kigezi, the famous Switzerland of Africa. I grew up in a typical rural set up where I attended school. The environment was full of all the kinds of Gender Based Violence you can dream of. Men woke up to go to bars while women did all the work and fended for their families. As if this was not enough, men sold their wives’ household harvests to go and drink. Any woman who questioned this was battered and chased from the house for a night or nights. This was the agony of the village woman. Imagine a woman carrying a baby on her back, a basket of sweet potatoes on her head and some firewood, pulling a goat on a rope. Come rain, shine, this was the order of the day. What a difficult life women lived! I was made to believe that women were supposed to do all the domestic work and feed the family, while men’s duty was to drink alcohol and beat women at leisure. I believed that women were supposed to sit on mats while stools and chairs were for men. As a young boy, I started imitating what I was observing and I used to refuse to sit on a mat. Whenever I was told to go and put firewood in the cooking stones, I would do it hesitantly because I knew it was the work of women and girls.
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