Forum for Women in Democracy Uganda

(left - right): Solome Mukisa Founder Member, Solome Nakaweeso, Board Chair,  Winnie Byanyima Founder member, Benigna Mukiibi, Founder Member,  Patricia Munabi, FOWODE Exective Director and Lina Zedriga, FOWODE Board  Member,  at the launch of FOWODE’s new Strategic Plan FOWODE on 6th march 2013 launched her new strategic plan 2013-2017, in New York. The five-year Plan was launched by Winnie Byanyima who is also one of the founder members of FOWODE . The new Strategic Plan builds on the past successes and will help scale up and deepen FOWODE’s work of ensuring women’s voices are more audible and their capacity to access and control resources is enhanced. Its theory of change is to invest strategically in areas where power is exercised i.e. around money, voices and participation which will ultimately increase accountability towards omen centered economic and political processes. Describing it as a blueprint for growth and improvement, Solome Nakawe...

A coalition of Ugandan women MPs has backed a proposal in a Bill that makes it punishable for a spouse to force the other into sex without their consent.   The MPs’ position is, however, subject to how the Parliament will vote when debate on the Marriage and Divorce Bill resumes next week.   Addressing the press as one of the events to mark International Women’s Day, the legislators under the African Network of Women Parliamentarians and the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) said some spouses have died as a result of being forced into sex. But their support could stoke the controversy that has built up around proposed Clause 114(2) which a number of male MPs fear could be abused to frustrate men in relationships. The clause says a spouse has a right to deny his or her partner sex where forceful sex results into both criminal and civil liabilities. A spouse may deny the right to sexual intercourse on reasonable grounds which may include poor health, surgery...