Women’s Leaders Group Urges Cultural Institutions to Promote Gender Equality

A national coalition of women civil society organization actors, called the Uganda Women’s Leaders group, is urging cultural institutions to increase their interventions in promoting women’s social protection. The coalition’s primary objective is to empower women and encourage their active participation in civic and democratic engagements across the country.

The coalition has identified that many women still fall victim to traditional cultural beliefs that portray them as inferior, leading to their exclusion from decision-making processes. To address this, Emily Kabahumuza, the coalition’s national women’s representative, is challenging cultural institutions to promote inclusiveness in leadership positions. She believes that cultural institutions can lead the charge in promoting gender equality and women’s rights.

According to Kabahumuza, promoting female inclusiveness in all leadership positions will empower women to eliminate gender discrimination, teenage marriages, domestic and gender-based violence, widow harassment, and other injustices that affect them. Cultural institutions are highly respected social institutions that can change public perception by promoting women in various aspects of life and giving them equal opportunities to serve in positions of leadership.

Salome Noeline Nabbosa, a women’s coordinator at the Support Transformation Effort Program (STEP-UP) operating in Eastern Uganda, is urging cultural institutions to make adjustments to norms that promote males over their female counterparts.

The coalition aims to document different cultural beliefs and practices that promote gender inequality and engage the leadership of various institutions to establish universal social protection programs to address them.

Florence Nakandi, the Programs Coordinator at the Community Transformation Foundation Network-COTFONE, emphasizes the need for total enforcement of policies against gender discrimination and sexual exploitation in workplaces as one way of creating a safe working environment for women.