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Kampala, Uganda
Uganda workshop examines gender, peace issues


A workshop on the relationship between gender and peace, held at the MCC office in Kampala, Uganda, found that peace-building is about maintaining land, family and community during times of war. Peace is the kind of work women do simply by producing children and keeping them alive so there is a next generation.

The workshop brought together eight men and women representing national and international organizations within Kampala.

Uganda serves well as a place to begin talking about gender and peace because of the country’s long history of war and violence. As well, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s commitment to gender equality has gained Uganda international recognition and has made gender a household term within the country.

MCC has a long history of involvement in peace issues. But in speaking of peace in the context of gender, MCC was breaking new ground.

When participants first heard the term “gender and peace”, they admitted they were baffled. When they heard of the workshop, some women in northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army remains active, said that as yet the country has only known gender and violence.

An international agency, Isis-WICCE, based in Kampala, has spent the last several years documenting women’s specific experiences of armed conflict. Director Ruth Ochieng says, “Women’s experience of armed conflict all goes under the single word ‘rape’. But the prevalence, the actual experience, the effects . . . none are documented.”

Workshop participants spent time considering the ways in which women are already involved in peace-building efforts such as networking, lobbying, counselling victims of war, fostering cross-cultural understanding, negotiating and making decisions, raising gender equality, and researching gender and conflict issues.

At the end of the two-day workshop, one participant noted: “My understanding of the extent of violence against women has been broadened.” Another commented, “Violence against women is actually a human rights issue.”

Women have a unique and essential role to play in peace-building. And there are high hopes that MCC will continue to play a role in raising awareness around this critical issue.

 – adapted from a report by Jennifer deGroot, MCC Canada

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Last modified July 5, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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