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Over the past three decades, the once-adaptive practice of 'taking by force' (cattle raiding) by pastoralist tribes in Northern Uganda has been transformed into a violent, ongoing intractable conflict within the tribes that threatens to destroy the Karimojong people and their way of life. This article suggests that in addition to the typical sources of intractable conflict, a massive influx of automatic weapons not only created instability in the community but also led to a shift in cultural norms. Several cultural norms now perpetuate the conflict, leading to increased intractability. Keywords: intractable conflict; sources of conflict; Karimojong; pastoralism; cattle raiding

It is estimated that two million of Uganda's children today are orphaned primarily due to AIDS. While recognising the immense impact of HIV/AIDS on the present orphan problem, this article calls for a broader historic and cultural contextualisation to reach an understanding of the vastness of the orphan challenge. The study on which the article is based was carried out among the Langi in Lira District, northern Uganda, with a prime focus on the situation of orphans within the extended family system. The data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork (8 months); in-depth interviews with community leaders (21), heads of households (45) and orphans (35); through focus group discussions (5) with adult men and women caring for orphans, community leaders and with orphans; and also through documentary review. A survey was conducted in 402 households. The findings reveal a transition over the past 30 years from a situation dominated by 'purposeful' voluntary exchange of non-orphaned children to one dominated by 'crisis fostering' of orphans. Sixty-three percent of the households caring for orphans were found to be no longer headed by resourceful paternal kin in a manner deemed culturally appropriate by the patrilineal Langi society, but rather by marginalised widows, grandmothers or other single women receiving little support from the paternal clan. This transition is partly linked to an abrupt discontinuation of the Langi 'widow inheritance' (laku) practice. It is argued that the consequential transformations in fostering practices in northern Uganda must be historically situated through a focus on the effects of armed conflicts and uprooting of the local pastoral and cotton-based economy, which have occurred since the late 1970s. These processes jointly produced dramatic economic marginalisation with highly disturbing consequences for orphans and their caretakers. Keywords: Uganda; Langi; Orphans; Transformations; Widows; HIV/AIDS

This article contextualizes Ugandan urban-rural relations through urban children's knowledge, imaginations, and experiences, which are affected by the present sociohistoric moment in Uganda. Influenced by urban-rural migration, changing notions of family and kinship, and the national government's prolific 'development-through-education' campaign, urban schoolchildren imagine 'the village' both as an integral imaginary space of ethnic identity origination and a location for fulfillment of national citizenship through development.

ABSTRACT Much of the literature on women and land tenure in Africa has viewed the introduction of land titling, registration, and the privatization of land under colonialism and after independence [...]

This article reviews the challenges and opportunities posed by the rapid growth of private universities in Uganda since 1988 and tries to identify areas of the private university system in which the state can play a positive role. It argues that the state should not leave the operation of the system entirely to market forces but should positively regulate their activities without control. Seven challenges are identified. These include the management challenge, the financing of these institutions, meeting the ever increasing demand for higher education, the devising of relevant curricula, addressing the dearth of qualified academic staff, the formation of a comprehensive national higher education policy, and the maintenance of institutional autonomy tempered by accountability of each of these new university institutions. At the same time, the article identifies a number of opportunities that these institutions could take advantage of. These include the positive economic development the country has been registering for the last decade and half, the resilience of the lower educational system, the social need for higher education, the policy of Universal Primary Education (UPE), the interest of the current government in education development, and the positive international attitude toward Uganda.

Little is known about the background of commercial sex workers in Africa. This study investigated how women in a trading town on the trans-Africa highway in southwest Uganda become involved in commercial sex work, which factors contribute to their economic success or lack of success, and what effect life trajectories and economic success have on negotiating power and risk behaviour. Over the course of two years detailed life histories of 34 women were collected through recording open, in-depth interviews, the collection of sexual and income and expenditure diaries, visits to the women's native villages, and participant observation. The women share similar disadvantaged backgrounds and this has played a role in their move into commercial sex. They have divergent experiences, however, in their utilisation of opportunities and in the level of success they achieve. They have developed different life styles and a variety of ways of dealing with sexual relationships. Three groups of women were identified: (1) women who work in the back-street bars, have no capital of their own and are almost entirely dependent on selling sex for their livelihood; (2) waitresses in the bars along the main road who engage in a more institutionalised kind of commercial sex, often mediated by middlemen and (3) the more successful entrepreneurs who earn money from their own bars as well as from commercial sex. The three groups had different risk profiles. Due partly to their financial independence from men, women in the latter group have taken control of sexual relationships and can negotiate good sexual deals for themselves, both financially and in terms of safe sex. The poorer women were more vulnerable and less able to negotiate safer sex. A disadvantaged background and restricted access to economic resources are the major reasons for women gravitating to commercial sex work, Various aspects of personality play a role in utilising income from commercial sex to set up an economic basis that then makes the selling of sex unnecessary. This has implications for interventions, and part of the longer-term solution should lie in improving the economic position of women vis-a-vis men. Keywords: Commercial sex work; Life histories; Uganda; Survival strategies; Risks; HIV/AIDS

In order to understand factors influencing choice of delivery sites in Rakai district of south-western Uganda, eight focus group discussions based on the Attitudes-Social influence-Self efficacy model were held with 32 women and 32 men. Semi-structured interviews were also held with 211 women from 21 random cluster samples who had a delivery in the previous 12 months (from 2 June 1997). Forty four percent of the sample delivered at home, 17% at traditional birth attendant's (TBA) place, 32% at public health units, and 7% at private clinics. Among the factors influencing choice of delivery site were: access to maternity services; social influence from the spouse, other relatives, TBAs and health workers; self-efficacy; habit (previous experience) and the concept of normal versus abnormal pregnancy. Attitudinal beliefs towards various delivery sites were well understood and articulated. Attendance of ante-natal care may discourage delivery in health units if the mothers are told that the pregnancy is normal. In order to make delivery safer, there is need to improve access to maternity services, train TBAs and equip them with delivery kits, change mother's self-efficacy beliefs, and involve spouses in education about safe delivery.

This article describes the transformation of the agricultural economy that took place as a result of the disintegration of the state provision of marketing in Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s. In this context, the article examines how the commercialization of food crops is constructing new relations of gender within agricultural production. In the transformation caused by the commercialization of food crops, men appeared to have gained total control over food production, causing the gender relations to move from a complementary to a patriarchal system. Closer examination, however, reveals an increased significance of marital bargaining and a movement from established gender roles to more negotiable relationships. The evidence underscores the continued significance of differentiated socioeconomic status to women's bargaining potential in gender relations.

Women's organizations in Uganda and Tanzania suggest ways of uniting in societies that are increasingly divided along sectarian lines. Women from different backgrounds are motivated by the common goal of social inclusion. Besides, economic necessity has made women the primary wage-earners in many households. These developments have prompted women to seek ways of utilizing their strength without relying on the state. Formal and informal women's organizations suggest possibilities for institutional reform. The study also examines the concept of civil society in a non-Western context.

Community and hospital based studies were conducted to assess the major factors related to the practice of family planning during 1989 and 1990 in Central Sudan. The mothers of 1592 births in the community and 1357 births in the hospital were interviewed by trained study workers. Prevalence of contraceptive use prior to current pregnancy was 13.0% and knowledge of a family planning method was 43.0% among hospital women and 51.0% among community women. The major predictors of use of a family planning method were parity, socioeconomic status, knowledge of source of service and maternal age. The average completed family size was 7.7 children and with the exception of a lengthy breast feeding duration, the factors examined favored a high fertility. Women preferred and apparently practiced behaviors conducive to spacing rather than limiting the number of their children. The results between the hospital, the community, and the Sudan Demographic and Health Survey 1989/1990 were consistent suggesting a minimal effect of selection bias and increasing the validity of these findings. Accessible and available family planning services coupled with wider information on family planning through health personnel and the media are needed. In particular, special efforts should be made to reach women of low socioeconomic status.

Long distance drivers and prostitutes at trading centres and towns have been targeted as groups that engage in risky sexual behaviours that promote HIV transmission. While towns and stops along highways have been linked to HIV transmission, the role of small urban and rural centres have been overlooked. There is need to study socio-geographical mating networks because situations not deemed to be risky may be an important aspect of HIV transmission.

This paper reports on a trial of vaginal products that were distributed and used by 131 women and 21 men in south west Uganda. It focuses specifically upon the issue of female control in heterosexual relationships and examines whether methods which are ostensibly under women's control, will in practice give women greater control of their sexual health. Participants were invited to select two from a range of vaginal products that included the female condom, contraceptive sponge, film, tablets, foam and gel, and use each for five weeks and their favourite product for a further three months. They were interviewed up to seven times over a five-month period. Although the women perceived that a major advantage of the products (with the exception of the female condom) was that they could be used secretly, less than 40% were using the products without their partner's knowledge after one week and this proportion declined over time with only 22% using the products secretly after ten weeks. In the main male partners were told as women felt it their duty to inform them. In general the women were very much more positive about the products than they were about the male condom, as were the men. A contributory factor to their popularity among women was the greater control they gave them. Even though, use of these products in practice often involved negotiation with male partners, the fact that use was contingent on women's action was empowering and increased somewhat their ability to control their sexual health. Keywords: Female control; HIV; Contraceptives; Uganda

This study uses survey and focus-group data from the 1995--96 Negotiating Reproductive Outcomes study in Uganda to describe the nature of the decision to stop childbearing and to question the [...]

The principal aim of this study of adolescents in Mbale District, Uganda, is to provide program-related information about their behavior, motivations, and perceptions of risk with regard to pregnancy and [...]

In April, the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-U) achieved its most significant legal success to date when the nation's Constitutional Court overturned key parts of the adultery law--which allowed [...]

Miriam Tabingwa, founding member of Uganda's Action for Economic Development, discusses women's emancipation. She recounts her experiences with rural women and the transformation of their initial apathy towards the issue into participation. Rural women used to think that the issue was only relevant to their educated and urbanized sisters and considered it quite foreign to their experience. Only after the explanation of the concept as the facilitation of equal rights for both women and men did it become acceptable and pertinent., Uganda (From 'Emancipation and Rural Women in Uganda,' in Women in Action, a publication of ISIS International, The Philippines, Number 2/1991.) Miriam Tabingwa is a founder/member of Action for Economic [...]

Deborah Awori could not stop her husband from selling their 14-year-old daughter in marriage, using the time-honoured tradition of asking for a "bride price". However, Awori recently testified at the [...]