Bundibugyo, Uganda – A drunk man kicked a pot off the fireplace and demanded to know why dinner wasn’t ready. He then hit his wife with a firewood and an argument ensued. The two were separated after a struggle.
The skit, which explores the theme of domestic violence, was performed for villagers in western Uganda who were left feeling confused, amused, but horrified by the drama’s reflection of reality.
This is a remote farming village near the border with Congo where women are the primary targets of domestic violence, including the performers in the skits.
Eva Brympikija, who played the woman who fights back, said her real-life husband attacked her after returning home late the previous night.
“He was drunk and all of a sudden he said, ‘Come and open it for me’. I was almost asleep so when I was late opening it he started complaining and then slapped me,” she said.
A few years ago, she said she was slapped so badly that she suffered hearing loss and still suffers from headaches.
A local nonprofit that staged the skit said domestic violence is so prevalent in this part of Uganda, about 400 kilometers (248 miles) from the capital, Kampala, that it’s hard to find a woman who hasn’t been a victim.
A representative of Uruganda, an organisation affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said he was forced to act after coming across a woman and her child being attacked by her drunken partner in 2022. The child’s head was swollen and the mother feared the child would die.
Oluganda led the prosecution of the perpetrator, who was jailed for six months and is now living peacefully with his wife. The rare prosecution galvanized locals, who launched a campaign to fight what the group sees as the normalization of domestic violence. At the time, 47 of 50 women surveyed by the group in Bundibugyo said they had been assaulted in the past week.
Working in 10 villages, the group is as intent on instilling fear in criminals as it is on educating them: Suspected perpetrators are asked to sign “reconciliation letters” pledging not to commit the same crime again.
Signing the document will prevent escalation that could lead to police involvement, but it will also be kept as evidence for possible prosecution if the agreement is violated, said Vincent Tibesigwa Isimbwa, the Uruganda leader in Bundibugyo. Only five of the roughly 100 people have violated the agreement so far, he said.
Angela Akoto of ActionAid Uganda, an expert on gender-based violence in Uganda, encourages such efforts to target perpetrators and calls them “male engagement strategies.”
The men who separated the fighting couple in the skit were members of the real-life “Humanity Club,” one of many clubs set up by Oluganda to respond as quickly as possible to outbreaks of violence. Thomas Barikigamba, a local man who was jailed for six months for domestic violence, said he was warning others about the severity of incarceration. “At Drinking Point, I always tell members of the group that it’s very bad to fight at home,” he said.
The women sitting around the couple were called “Soul Sisters” and were responsible for providing counselling, shelter and clothing to the women who had been evicted from their homes.
Isimbwa also encouraged men who are “internal bleeding” – a euphemism for violence perpetrated by women against men – to seek help, saying “violence in any form should not be tolerated.”
Domestic violence is a global threat. According to 2021 statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), one in three women worldwide are victims of some form of domestic violence. In Uganda, a survey conducted by local authorities with UN support in 2020 found that 95% of women and girls have experienced physical violence, sexual violence, or both since the age of 15.
Isimbwa said he had received threats from local residents for trying to empower women, but he said Uruganda aimed to reach more villages and “build trust” with local officials who will determine the success of efforts to prosecute perpetrators.
“We have created more awareness in the community. Now people tend to know what they should do. They try their best not to infringe on the rights of others,” he said.
Many Bundibugyo residents who spoke to The Associated Press said domestic violence often begins with disputes over money or sex, and that the fights can be exacerbated by alcoholism and illiteracy.
Most cases are not prosecuted: Of 2,194 teen pregnancy cases in 2023 – a broad category that includes some cases of domestic violence – only 54 were reported to police in Bundibugyo, said Pamela Grace Adon, the district’s probation and social welfare officer. Bundibugyo has a population of about 20,000.
“Right now, gender-based violence is on the rise,” she said. “For example, last year there were about 575 cases. But this year, now it’s June, there are about 300.”
She said Uruganda’s mediation work was helping to maintain security in the region.
In the town of Sarah Kihombia, a collection of mud houses across from the Uruganda-run Seventh-Day Adventist church, many of the men gather at the bar in the morning and stay there all day.
Domestic violence is said to increase between October and February, when the cocoa trees that dot the volcanic soil are in peak harvest season, and many residents say couples sometimes fight over the division of income.
When the men return home after selling the cocoa and the women demand money, “it’s war,” said Linda Kabugo, a kindergarten teacher who until recently was repeatedly assaulted by her husband.
Kabugo, 23, who dropped out of secondary school in 2022 because she became pregnant, said she had argued with her husband when he came home miserable after losing money betting on soccer. “He would take his anger out on me,” she said. “We just kept arguing, arguing, arguing.”
Last year, she contacted local officials, who introduced her to Uruganda, and the couple received counselling from a group of Soul Sisters, of which she was one. The man was warned that he risked prison if he hit his wife again.
Kabugo said her husband had not hit her for months and considered him a responsible man.
“At least now I can sleep and eat well,” she said. “We’re safe, and I’m safe.”
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