A typical rural woman wakes up at 5:30 a.m., goes to the garden to provide food for her family. By midday, she returns to tend to her home, care for her children, and prepare meals for her husband. Her entire life revolves around one piece of land.

The heartbreaking reality is that rural women often face social injustices stemming from unfair power dynamics—economic inequality and entrenched gender disparities. Many women I’ve encountered have been forcibly evicted from their only source of livelihood—their land—by husbands, relatives, or even their own children. One woman, Esther Nanziri (not her real name), a vulnerable widow in Buyende District, shared her story: “After my husband’s death, his family chased me and my two young children off the land we lived on and farmed. Now, we depend entirely on my brother’s mercy.”

To make matters worse, rural women lack the financial means to pursue justice through the courts. When I asked Esther why she hadn’t taken legal action, she replied, “The people hurting me live in Kampala. How can I fight them when I have no money?”

For women like Esther, the judicial system seems impenetrable—burdened by costly legal representation, language barriers, and complex procedures only a law graduate could navigate.

The Human Rights (Enforcement) Act of 2019 offers a remedy. It dismantles these barriers, opening doors to justice for rural women’s land rights. Crucially, the Act empowers magistrates’ courts—closer to rural communities—to hear human rights cases. It eliminates legal technicalities, allowing vulnerable women to present their cases orally or in their local language. The magistrate then translates their testimony into English, the court’s formal language. This means a woman like Esther, who speaks only Lusoga, can seek justice without bureaucratic hurdles.

This law has already proven effective. The Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT) successfully used it to help Sanyu Esther (not her real name), an illiterate woman in Kiboga, reclaim her kibanja (land) after a neighbor seized it. She won her case—in less than a month.

As we mark World Social Justice Day, I urge stakeholders—government agencies, civil society, and advocates—to harness this transformative law to combat injustices against rural women and their land rights.

Nabbaale Tracy
(Program Manager, Social Justice and Strategic Litigation – CEFROHT)