Deforestation spikes Gender-Based Violence in Uganda’s West Nile Region

Kampala

Lydia Aseru* narrates in tears how women are often raped by cattle herders in the forest while collecting firewood for cooking and sale. Women’s fuel wood collection and deforestation, especially in West Nile districts hosting refugees have not only affected the environment but also led to an increase in cases of Gender-Based Violence.

Ms Aseru who is a female councillor representing Persons with Disabilities in Rigbo Sub-county, which hosts Rhino Refugee Settlement reveals that sometimes women are raped by the cattle herders and hunters inside the bushes while searching for firewood but cannot tell their husbands because this might result in divorce. Rhino Refugee Settlement stretches from Terego District to Madi Okollo District.

“This happened to me twice, but the worst was when a young girl was raped by the step-father and an old woman raped by a young boy and the woman could not move, spending three days in the forest only to be brought home by good Samaritans,” Ms Aseru revealed.

Most women tend to be found in the poorest sections of society since they depend on natural resources for their livelihoods and are discriminated against through labour division and access, control and knowledge about natural resources such as forests.

Changes in the climate and natural degradation, especially forest degradation are threatening their livelihoods.

Gender relations are structured around managing the environment where women are seen as major users and managers of the forests. The interviews by AWiM News explore the experiences of women in the West Nile districts of Arua, Obongi, Madi Okolo and Adjumani around fuel wood collection and how they have been affected by deforestation.

Rights groups have pointed out that women experience changes in their livelihoods because of deforestation and eventually gender-based violence. The amount of time spent on fuel wood collecting activities increased while less time was left for other activities. Women’s income and resources from the forests were reduced or disappeared and the main focus turned to covering the needs of the household.

Women’s lives in the region have been negatively affected by deforestation. Heavy work had negative health effects on women. Some women have left fuel wood collection for alternative sources of income because it has become too demanding.

Furthermore, the interviews revealed that women are worried about their future since they need forests as well as fuel wood to survive.

Currently, the increasing cases of Gender-Based Violence in most of the refugee hosting districts of the West Nile Region are being attributed to the impact of deforestation by local authorities.

In the West Nile region, the districts of Terego, Madi Okollo, Obongi, Yumbe, Koboko and Adjumani that are hosting the refugees and those that are densely populated are experiencing rapid depletion of the forest cover resulting in increased gender-based violence, leaving several women as single mothers after divorce.

Interviews by AWiM News in the various parts of the region paint a grim picture since women take a long time looking for firewood for cooking, which doesn’t go well with their partners. They are usually beaten or sent away when they return home after taking long hours in the forest.

Ms Aseru is one of the women who was sent away from her marital home by her husband with two of her children and is currently living in her parents’ home. Ms Aseru explains that she became a single parent after being battered and sent away by her husband for spending several hours in the forest looking for firewood.

“Sometimes we go to look for firewood for about five to ten kilometres, this takes a lot of time but even if you explain to your husband he doesn’t understand, he ordered me to leave his home otherwise I would die and now the worst is he has five women,” she narrates.

Ms Aseru’s case is not isolated as many other women have also suffered the same fate.

Martha Aber is one of the South Sudanese refugee women living in Imvepi Refugee Settlement under the Terego District. In her story, Ms Aber said they separated over the continuous attacks by the host community on their family over firewood collection.

“Whenever I would go and get firewood from the local forests in the neighbouring communities, they would descend on us and sometimes they beat all of us up. We would report to the local authorities, but as this continued and my husband said the locals will kill him and that we should separate, now I live on my own and he has returned to Juba, we don’t even communicate,” Ms Aber explained.

Mr Aggrey Nundwa the Programmes Coordinator at World Vision says they have managed to help over 56 girls and women who have suffered the sexual violence meted on them while in the forests. Some of them were conceived in settlements and those among the host community population in their resource centre at Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in Yumbe District.

“Most of these women and girls are between the age bracket of 14 to 36 years and these had remained helpless after being abandoned by the parents or husbands who rejected them due to various reasons among which the environmental issues top the list,” Mr Nundwa said.

Africa Green Stimulus Programme estimates that 60 per cent of the continent’s population does not use electricity as an alternative source of energy other than wood fuel and that this has an advanced impact on biodiversity. Countries are encouraged to invest in green initiatives and renewable energy.

However, several implementing partners, including the Danish Refugee Council DRC, GIZ, World Vision, Rural Initiative for Community Empowerment-West Nile  RICE-WN  among others in the refugee-hosting districts, have tried to use several mechanisms of ending conflicts among families arising from the impact of human-environmental interactions through empowering communities to use alternative sources of energy, capacity buildings on the restorations efforts of the depleted forest areas and tree planting among others.

The magnitude of forest destruction in the West Nile

Uganda has been ranked third on the globe for hosting refugees with now about 1.5 million refugees, the majority of whom are from South Sudan and have settled in West Nile. This has caused havoc to the environment as the demand for energy keeps rising every day among both the host communities and refugees.

According to records obtained from National Forestry Authority West Nile, the region has seen its depletion of the vegetation cover-up from 34 per cent in 1990 with the worst being at 09 per cent in 2015, and that due to partners’ interventions this improved slightly to 12.5 per cent in 2020 and most of these have been attributed to the influx of the refugees from both DR Congo and South Sudan, with others due to the increased demand for land for other uses, illegal logging and high demand for commercial charcoal.

The Range Manager National Forestry Authority (NFA) West Nile branch Robert Owinyi reveals that the region is currently experiencing hot climatic conditions arising from continuous deforestation.

“If you go to some parts of the region, especially in the districts of Madi Okollo, Moyo, Yumbe, Adjumani and Pakwach, temperatures are beyond the usual. The worst is in Pakwach where I saw a thermometer reading of up to 41 degrees Celsius which has never happened since I am used to temperatures of 21 to 30. We need to conserve the environment as a team otherwise people will not carry out agricultural activities anymore if the weather remains like this,” he stated.

Since January 2022, West Nile has just received its first season of rain in May contrary to the previous years when the people in the region would start planting in early March as soon as the first rain falls.

The hiccups in resolving deforestation

The male youth Councillor in Madi Okollo District Local Government, Mr Okello Fred Ayikobua says tree cutting is affecting livelihoods.  He says this culminates in increasing cases of gender-based violence in the communities.

Mr Ayikobua further stated that the majority of the people in the district do not use alternative sources of energy like the use of gas, solar energy, briskets and charcoal stoves other than the use of firewood

“Despite all these interventions by partners about 80 per cent of the population in Madi Okollo District are using firewood other than the alternative sources of energy because they are expensive as the majority are poor and have many wives, most of the people lack the knowledge and even the energy-saving alternatives are not available at peoples disposal,” Mr Ayikobua said.

Status of GBV cases in refugee-hosting districts.

The Gender-Based Violence Dashboard Report, published by Relief Web on September 23, 2021, indicates that between January- June 2021, a total of 2,542 new GBV incidences from 13 refugee hosting districts in Uganda were registered, 94 per cent of the survivors were female while 4 per cent were male. In this, rape was the highest at 29 per cent, followed by physical assault at 26 per cent.

Records obtained from Arua Central Police Station Regional Offices of Child and Family Protection Unit (CFPU) West Nile, indicate that West Nile police registered 841 domestic violence cases and of these 520 are gender-based meanwhile 305 are from environmentally-related concerns.

The West Nile Regional Child and Family Protection Unit in charge at Arua CPs Superintendent of Police, Mr Anguyo Jimmy Bayiga says the majority of the men in the refugee hosting districts have negatively seen the interventions of the implementing partners in the refugee hosting districts of empowering women-only negatively leading to these skyrocketing cases of GBV.

“Majority of these cases are over the scarcity of resources, some are due to the attitude of partners singling women in their programmes, leaving the men, and marrying too many wives has remained a burden for the majority of the men in the region,” Mr Anguyo said

As part of the problem solving to GBV cases in the refugee settlements, the Regional Refugee Desk Officer in the Office of Prime Minister Solomon Osakani said they are now engaging different stakeholders in various activities of psychosocial tackling behavioural change, livelihoods, engaging restoration of forests and enlightening and strengthening access to justice among the refugees and host communities among others.

Uganda has been ranked the top due to high cases of Gender-Based violence in the Sub- Saharan Africa with 60 per cent, followed by Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia all at 50 per cent, while Malawi, Zimbabwe and Rwanda experience less the physical violence among women and girls from 15-49 years, according to Africa’s Health Survey carried in 2010.

However, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) notes that forests cover a third of the world and that 12 million hectares are lost every year across the globe and yet 1.6 million people earn livelihoods from the forests. UNEP, therefore, warns countries of the expected dangers of deforestation that the body said will affect the climatic conditions across the world and that they should take immediate action in mitigating the impact.

The government needs to sensitize the public about the importance of saving green vegetation, bringing to light the dangers of deforestation not only to the people but also to the environment and climate. The local populace also needs to be educated on the values of trees and reforestation. The community should be given young seedlings for re-planting and those caught illegally cutting trees dealt with according to the law.

*Ms Aseru consented to the use of her real name 

This article is part of  African Women in Media (AWiM)/UNEP Africa Environmental Journalism Programme

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