Para social workers navigate cultural minefield of wife inheritance

Sarah Mbambu already had ten children with her husband when he died in 2020. In her late thirties, having that number of children was normal in a society where girls get married off early. 

Physically exhausted but chronologically young, Sarah was now good enough to be inherited by one of her late husband’s brothers as his new wife. Again, not unusual with her Bakonzo community, among whom she has lived most of her life in Katoke Parish, Bugoye Sub County in the mountainous district of Kasese in western Uganda.

But Sarah was not so lucky. The clan meeting that sat immediately after her husband’s death preferred to take her family’s property minus her and her children. So, when they drew the list of the deceased’s property as is customary when a man dies, she was not included on the list. Usually, the widow features on the list of the dead man’s properties, otherwise referred to as his estate in legal terms.

Her late husband’s relatives did not like her because she had worked so hard with him to develop their coffee farm and educate their children (who were also omitted from the list of the deceased’s properties) that they feared she had a sense of entitlement to the property. Sarah and her children were thrown out even before the burial of the husband and father. So back to her original parents’ home she went and a little shack was hastily erected to accommodate the eleven freshly displaced and bereaved persons.

Now in her second year with the initiative, Biira was not going to watch the injustice being accepted without a fight. So, she got ready for combat. 

Establishing the facts was not difficult, because the deceased’s relatives were not denying their deed of evicting the woman and her ten children, which they insisted was the right thing to do. When interviewing Sarah, she corroborated her tormentors’ story, as did her older children. Biira duly filed her report with the sub-county social welfare officer -Juliet Kabugho, shared her plan of action which was approved and went to the trenches. 

Since Biira involved the authorities by reporting the matter and getting Sarah to file her complaint, it was relatively easy to secure redress. It dawned on the tough-talking clansmen that the government with all its institutions especially the police were ready to take action on the side of Sarah and her children – and also to charge the clan actors with criminal offences. So Biira really made short work of the clansmen. Not only was Sarah re-instated, re-entering her home triumphantly with her children, the clansmen had to officially apologize to her.

It was a fresh start for the previously discarded Sarah. Her first born, 21-year old Brian Mumbere, was recently elected youth council chairperson for Katoke Parish. If it hadn’t been for the family’s restored self-esteem, he wouldn’t have dreamt of standing in a competitive election, let alone winning.

But much as Biira was satisfied with yet another of several victories scored in rescuing a victim of archaic and unfair customs since she joined the Spotlight Initiative activities, she is aware that the war on different forms of violence against women and children is just starting in Kasese. For many women still fear reporting domestic violence because they fear being blamed by the husband’s relatives. 

The Spotlight Initiative is a partnership between the European Union and United Nations established to eliminate all forms of violence against women and children, particularly girls. It is funded by the European Union and implemented in seven districts of Uganda, Kasese being one of them under the overall supervision of the Government of Uganda. 
ght Initiative

“We have been working with the clan leaders quite a lot,” Biira explains. “These elders make it easier for our programmes to be accepted once they are convinced it is for the sake of the children’s future. Sometimes they even endorse our invoking the law to deal with the stubborn cases,” she explains.