By Godwin Abedican

Arua

Women in Arua district are expressing concerns over the continuous rise in the cases of family neglect and lack of support from men concerning family affairs. These concerns were raised on Wednesday 28^th February 2024, at Arivu Sub-county during a community engagement and training organized by Upendo Ni Baraka, a community based organization established early last year in Arua district, with interest in dealing with challenges faced by persons with disability and women.

According to the women, being left to raise children single handedly is one of the major factors affecting the upbringing of children hence the high school dropouts and early marriages.

Jemilly Avako, associates this parental negligence from the side of men is a as a result of unfaithfulness in marriage where by many men end up marrying more women and want to be fed by the wives with nothing that they do to add on what the women can provide. She says that, since they keep moving from the house of one women to another absolutely no time is spared to attend to the needs of the children and guiding them on how they could grow in to better children.

According to Florence Ezaru, an elder from Aciba village in Omoo parish, the declining degrees of respect and appreciation of marriages by men is one factor which making them to neglect their families. “Nowadays, men do not think about getting their wives and children together to talk to them. It has even reached a level where they don’t eat the food that women prepare for them at home but choose to eat from outside and they just come back to sleep. It’s really a very difficult situation for us the women,” she said.

Knight Ayakaka, a mother who has been left razing her children alone without support from her husband says that the greatest challenge comes in raising the girl child which since there is always no manly voice a home. “As others when it comes to raising children especially girls sometimes we end up beating them but when they reach adolescent sometimes we get annoyed because of the lack of support. Due to the beatings, sometimes they say we don’t love them and have ever told us they may commit suicide. This is very painful situation that we are in,” Ayakaka narrated.

However Olema Stephen, a resident of Ayaka village in Omoo parish attributes some of the change in attitude by men to the treatment women give them at home.
“Women have the behavior of joining saving groups and picking loans which they dint inform their husbands about. This has often led to confiscation of household items by the group members as loan recovery strategies and in cases where its not die to this, the lack of respect exhibited by many women also contributes to the man abandoning their families,” he said.

According to Betty Wuzzu the executive director Upendo Ni baraka as an organization, they intend to do more sensitization of the men using their own peers to reverse this trend. “As Upendo Ni Baraka, in all aspects we will never leave the men behind. They are our support ad we need to make them role models to the community members to show what a real man is and what a man can do to support the women they have in their homes and women in the comminutes,” Wuzzu mentioned.
 
Jean Longo Ayikoru the CDO for persons with disabilities and elders in the district also notes with concerns that this same vice is   affecting women with disabilities which makes it more difficult for them to appreciate life as it is given their status. “You find a person with disability talking care of her children, they always fall in to such situations especially where men impregnate them and deny the pregnancies. As a district we have continued to raise our voices against such acts as we continue to offer support to these women to overcome such challenges,” Longo added.

In the training held by Upendo Ni Baraka, mothers, fathers and the youth were brought together to be trained on parental care  as part of an effort towards skilling them on the shared responsibility of child upbringing and family care.
 
 
COVER PHOTO:  Betty Wuzzu (standing), the ED Upendo Ni Baraka  while speaking to the women during the training. By Godwin Abedican