Justice Mission: Legal Education in Rural Uganda

"In the Mukono Community of Uganda, 44% of widows and orphans have been victims of property grabbing following the death of a spouse or parent."

Yesterday, I attended an International Justice Mission (IJM) legal education held in a rural Ugandan church. IJM is an international human rights agency based in Washington, DC. IJM attorneys, social workers and other professionals work around the world to ensure that the global poor find protection under their own countries’ laws.

In Uganda (where I’m located), IJM takes on illegal property seizure casework. Rural Ugandans’ unfamiliarity with their legal rights and lack of law enforcement leave many people, particularly widows and orphans, susceptible to violent and forcible eviction from their land. In Uganda’s predominantly agricultural communities, losing land is synonymous with losing your livelihood: nowhere to stay, nowhere to go, and no way to eat.

Individual land rights are protected under the 1998 Land Act, yet a 2008 Mukono Community District Office study conducted in five sub-counties revealed that 44% of widows and orphans have been victims of property grabbing after their spouse or parent died.

IJM provides legal advocacy in specific cases of injustice, and also offers workshops to let people know about the protection afforded them under the law. I’m new to Uganda and new to IJM, and yesterday was the first legal education I’d attended.

On the way to the training, IJM staff shared among themselves digestive biscuits, and worried aloud that rain would prevent people from attending. Rain was falling fast and hard; rivers ran in the street. We saw one little girl bathing in a tiny basin, rinsing herself with the drops.

When we arrived, we soon discovered that the rain was no deterrent at all. Villagers filed in to the church and took their seats on rickety benches that almost seemed to groan under the load. Sitting in the back, I traced a pattern in the dirt floor and studied the church’s stick-built walls. I would have never believed they could withstand the torrential rain. I also wouldn’t have anticipated so many people would choose to cram themselves into so tiny a space.

Just before the training was to begin, I left the church and drove around the village with our translator and another staff member. We wanted to see if anyone else in the community wanted to come. The translator walked out into the street and called out to the people huddled against the rain beneath the eaves of their homes. Undaunted by the rain drops pelting him like pebbles, he stretched his arms wide to beckon people. Another staff member strode into a nearby bar. He’d hardly been inside the bar ten seconds before a dozen young men emerged and swarmed the van where I waited. They hopped in, shouting and cheering. I was suddenly enmeshed in a moving mass of unfamiliar people with their wide grins, and strong cologne. A moment of panic – were they angry? No, they were enthused about the training.

The training went very well. One of the staff attorneys explained the phenomenon of property-grabbing to all the attendees, many of whom had no idea that they were protected under law. She also taught about the importance of writing a will, and then distributed the proper forms they would need to do this for themselves. Her presentation was thorough and compelling, making good use of visual aids, and anticipating objections and questions. For example, some Ugandans believe that if they make a will, they’ll die soon after. She addressed fears like these in a calm, rational way without belittling anyone.

During the Q&A session, one man asked why wives and children were not considered part of an estate—they are property, so why can’t he distribute them in his will? And how could he possibly leave anything behind for them: how can property own property, he wanted to know? The attorney responded that Ugandan law views men, women, and children as equal.

One huge, brawny young man sporting very tight tweed pants came up to thank the attorney at the end. This was a surprisingly congenial gesture given, that he’d initially joked in front of the group about wanting to oust his wife without giving her anything. And yet here he was again, at the end of the training, saying he was thankful for IJM’s services and happy that his neighbors now knew about their legal rights as well.

After lunch, many people stayed to have their cases considered. The chance to sit down with widows who’d been violently evicted from their homes moved me deeply. So many of them had such sad faces: one, bleary-eyed and stooped, was evidently weakened by HIV.

During the training, I looked around at faces which surrounded me – of crying babies, of young women, of old men nodding assent. I thought about some of my own hazy life goals, such as helping to draft laws or to shape policy to protect people very much like the ones currently scratching, fidgeting, or nursing their babies next to me.

I thought to myself that the right laws don’t guarantee protection for those they’re designed to help, just as, in my life and perhaps in yours, the right “beliefs” might not always shake down to action. And so I found yesterday’s legal education refreshingly practical – a way to bring flesh and blood to the skeleton of the law.

If I ever do write policy, I hope I’ll stay close to the faces I’m hoping to help — those who need to know about their rights, and who deserve the chance to walk with their heads held high. Whenever I’ve visited IJM’s clients in the field, I’ve come back determined to do a good job for the hardworking people I’ve met there.

Towards the end of the training, I walked out and met a little girl with a gingham dress falling off her skinny shoulders. We couldn’t understand one another, but she shyly showed me a plastic water bottle. We ended up kicking it around and before I knew it there twenty children wanted to play, then thirty. I was embarrassed to have instigated such a ruckus, but I thoroughly enjoyed the game.

I wish I could record the children’s laughter for inclusion in this blog entry. You’ll just have to imagine their hoots, hollers and picture their unfettered movements for yourself.

Along the trip back – our driver deftly navigated the bumpy dirt roads—I thought about my gingham-clad friend. I hoped she might be able to live her life free from violence, that she might be able to live and move through the world unafraid.

–  Laura Stewart

Photos provided by Laura Stewart and IJM