A Cost-benefit Assessment of Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Women Reporting Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Uganda: Assessing Women’s Resilience as a Means to Protect their Ethno-religious Group

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Pages: 1-29
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: 10.25159/2522-6800/13424

Article

Southern African Public Law

https://doi.org/10.25159/2522-68 00/13424

https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/SAPL

ISSN 2522-6800 (Online ), ISSN 2219-6412 (Print)

Volume 38 | Number 1 | 2023 | #13424 | 29 pages

© Unisa Press 2023

A Cost-benefit Assessment of Refugee and Asylum-

Seeking Women Reporting Sexual and Gender-

based Violence in Uganda: Assessing Women’s

Resilience as a Means to Protect their Ethno-

religious Group

Jeremy Julian Sarkin

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9424-6874

Distinguished Research Professor and

member of CEDIS, NOVA University

of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal;

Research Fellow, Department of

Criminology, University of the Free

State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

JSarkin@post.harvard.edu

Tatiana Morais

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6636-6572

Researcher at CEDIS at NOVA

University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

tatiana.morais.cedis@novalaw.unl.pt

Abstract

Drawing from fieldwork carried out in Uganda, this empirical study is an

enquiry into women’s resilience in the face of sexual and gender-based violence

(SGBV) in the country. It asks why, and when, refugee and asylum-seeking

women decide to report (or not report) SGBV. It also enquires into the issues

that determine when they do so. The article shows that many participants did

not report cases of SGBV because of their concerns about protecting their ethno-

religious group and avoiding further discrimination and villainisation of their

communities. Survivors are also confronted with the ineffectiveness of

retributive justice, which is slow to punish perpetrators. This has led to the

establishment of a plea-bargaining system in the country, although this also falls

short of securing justice for SGBV survivors. Therefore, survivors often turn to

their communities to deal with instances of SGBV. However, most of these

community-based mechanisms reinforce patriarchal discrimination and

violence and often disregard women’s well-being, interests, and fundamental

rights. Women also have to deal with patriarchal pressure that places the

responsibility for community cohesion on the woman, as part of her traditional

role. This inhibits the ability to make a free and personal choice that could

benefit women as a social group.

Sarkin and Morais

2

Keywords: Uganda; women; sexual and gender-based violence; resilience; refugees;

asylum-seekers; ethnoreligious group

Introduction

Historically, the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda has been high.1 Like

Uganda, many countries face significant social, economic and security hardships,2 yet

the country hosts one of the largest number of refugees and asylum seekers in the

world.3 Despite the ongoing mass influx of people from multiple African countries, the

country continues to choose to host refugees and asylum seekers.4 The open-door

policy, solidarity and responsibility of sharing, hosting and supporting refugees and

asylum seekers has led to Uganda being given the popular title of ‘one of the best places

to be a refugee.’5 However, there are those who argue that the situation is not as positive

as it professes to be.6

Uganda’s record of hosting refugees suggests that unity is a common cultural feature

among African states.7 There is a strong feeling of solidarity and community-based

social structures to address conflicts and social tensions.8 However, the problems that

refugees and asylum-seekers face are significant, especially that of sexual and gender-

based violence, the rate of which is high.9 In 2020 Uganda’s rates for SGBV by the

Afrobarometer were found to be fifty-six per cent for married women between the ages

of fifteen and forty-nine. It was also found that more than a third of all women had

endured sexual violence, with twenty-eight per cent occuring in the previous year.10

1 Jafali Kasozi, ‘The Refugee Crisis and the Situation in Sub-Saharan Africa.’ (2017) ÖGFE Policy

Brief 16.

2 Mwangu Alex Ronald, ‘An Assessment of Economic and Environmental Impacts of Refugees in

Nakivale, Uganda’ (2022) 11(3) Migration and Development 433–449.

3 Ruth Nnadi Ebere and David Mwesigwa, ‘The Effectiveness of Social Inclusion of Refugees in

Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement Community of Midwestern Uganda’ (2021) 2(2) Asian Journal of

Sustainable Business 76–94.

4 Nastassja White and others, ‘Open the Doors: Towards Complete Freedom of Movement for Human

Rights Defenders in Exile in Uganda’ (2020) Journal of Human Rights Practice 1104–1128.

5 ‘Uganda: “One of the Best Places to be a Refugee”.’ BBC News (13 May 2016)

accessed 20 M arch 2023).

6 Joe Oloka-Onyango, ‘Exploring the Multiple Paradoxes and Challenges of Uganda's Refugee Law,

Policies and Practice.’ (2022) 9 Transnation al Human Rights Review 1.

7 See generally Mathew J Gibney, ‘Forced Migration, Engineer ed Regionalism and Justice Between

States’ in Susan Kneebone and Felicity Rawlings-San aei (ed), New Regionalism and Asylum Seekers:

Challenges Ahead (New York, Berghahn Books 2007) 57–7.

8 Alex Taylor, Daniella Rosner and Mikael Wiberg, ‘Global Mobilities’ (2011) 28(2) Interaction 6–7.

9 See also Diane F Morof and others, ‘A Cross-sectional Survey on Gender-based Violence and Mental

Health Among Female Urban Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Kampala, Uganda’ (2014) 127(2)

International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 138–143.

10 ‘Majority of Ugandans See Domestic Violence as a Private – Not Criminal – Matter’ (23 January

2023) Afrobarometer AD593 <https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-ontent/uploads/2023/01/AD593-