Issue: GENDER & WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Rural women, care and agrochemicals: A Call for Action 

Posted on by Tom

In rural communities worldwide, women are the backbone of food production and care. However, they are also on the frontlines of a growing health and environmental crisis caused by the widespread use of agrochemicals. Pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, central to the industrial corporate food system and production model, play a central role in the triple planetary crises: the intensification of climate change, the degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity, and environmental pollution.  

Our new briefing paper “Rural women, care and agrochemicals” shows that women face exposure in every dimension of life. In Ecuador’s banana and floriculture industries, women work amid fumigation and chemical residues, often without protection. Many bring pesticide-use practices into family greenhouses near their homes, extending contamination into the domestic sphere. Women are exposed to toxics during care work, when they are washing contaminated clothes, preparing food, and fetching water. Toxics also increase their already heavy care work when they nurse sick family members. 

“We are in a constant struggle. We seek to produce food that is healthy and agrodiverse […] bananas, cocoa, cassava, coffee, citrus fruits, avocados […]. However, in our surroundings […] we find large areas of banana monocultures. Through fumigation, using light aircraft or drones, extensive production contaminates nature, our production and ourselves.” Evelyn Yánez and Daisy Chávez, rural woman from Ecuador. 

Care as resistance and transformation 

Despite these injustices, rural women are building transformative alternatives rooted in care. They are leading the resistance against a food system centred on extraction and pollution that accumulates wealth in the hands of a few while externalising harms to communities and the environment. In Ecuador, the Rural Women’s Network has embarked on an agroecological transition that includes diversified production, seed protection, women-led agroecology schools, territorial food reserves free of agrochemicals, and community markets. 

Similarly, in Honduras, women fishers are defending their coastal territories, which are being polluted and privatized by industrial shrimp farming. The destruction of mangroves and marine biodiversity has made it increasingly difficult for these women to feed their families or make a living while compounding the impacts of climate change on coastal communities. Yet, they continue to take care of the marine ecosystems and their communities, demanding co-governance of marine resources, restoring mangroves and advocating for sustainable fishing practices.  

“We are full of shrimp laboratories; they took our beaches and left us only rubble and pollution. They did not fulfil their promises to provide employment for the community.” Leader of the Cedeño community. 

These efforts are not only about ensuring food security; they are about reclaiming control over the natural resources that sustain life and over the way food is produced and families are fed. By embracing agroecology, women are showing that care within food systems, care for the land, water, and forests, and communities, is a key force for social and environmental justice. They are advocating for ways of producing, collecting and exchanging food that are based on care and solidarity, not on toxic inputs and corporate greed. 

The challenges rural women face are compounded by gender inequalities. While they provide most of the unpaid care work, they receive little to no support from the state, and their work is often undervalued and invisibilized. As noted by Marcos Orellana, UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Substances and Human Rights, women face a “double injustice”—they are responsible for shielding their families from invisible toxics but are often denied the resources and information necessary to protect themselves and their communities. 

Rural women’s leadership and transformative practices offer a roadmap for a just and toxic-free world. To support and amplify their efforts it is essential that states: 

  • Recognize food care as essential: Acknowledge the critical role of women’s care work in sustaining life and food systems. 
  • Redistribute care responsibilities: Implement policies that share care work equitably across families, communities, and the state.. 
  • Support agroecology: Invest in sustainable, women-led agroecological practices, providing training, resources, and market access. 
  • Enforce protective measures: Enact strong, gender-responsive regulations to protect rural women from agrochemicals and other toxic substances. 

If we are serious about just, healthy, and sustainable food systems, we must place care—and the women who provide it—at the center of policy and action. Protecting their rights is not only a matter of justice; it is essential for the future of food and the health of our planet. 

Data is power: understanding the complexities of violence against women street vendors

Posted on by Tom

Women constitute a majority of market and street vendors worldwide. Every day, we can see them at the marketplace and on the streets, making a living to support their families, and making a significant contribution to the local economy – who we focus on in this edition of Supermarket Watch.

According to data from the Street Vendors Barometer, a participatory research led by StreetNet International with the Global Labour Institute (GLI), 64.2% of women vendors in Zimbabwe experience physical abuse from customers, with many reporting harassment and intimidation that jeopardise their safety and dignity. Some of the women are survivors of domestic abuse who turned to vending as a means of survival rather than choice. Gender specific economic precarity exacerbates their vulnerability, as only 7.8% of the women have maternity coverage, and most of them work long hours under insecure and exploitative conditions. Overall, vendors in Zimbabwe lack access to basic infrastructure. For one in five of them, the ground is their workplace with no shelter. Extreme weather has been disastrous for the incomes of these vendors, especially for those selling perishable goods like fresh food, fruits, vegetables or fish.

Meanwhile the survey found that 56.9% of women vendors in Argentina do not have access to toilets at their workplace, a problem that disproportionately affects women. Of those who have access to sanitation facilities, only 32.9% have access to gender-separated toilets, an invaluable source of safety and comfort for women vendors, posing concerns for their health and problems with menstruation. The survey also found that 40.9% women vendors face violence and harassment, frequently from police authorities and fellow vendors. From the findings, the lack of sanitary facilities, insecurity and extreme weather intensifies both economic and psychological stress, reinforcing women’s exposure to physical and emotional harm.

The data detailed above paints a grim reality, yet it might also help change it. The participatory research carried out by the Street Vendors Barometer is meant to visibilise and empower women vendors and market traders facing gender-based violence. Participatory research transforms women vendors from subjects of the research into equal partners of the process, which generates lived-based data to expose the gendered aspects of economic exclusion. It provides a practical organising tool, strengthening solidarity and uncovering shared experiences across countries.

The Street Vendor Barometer has confirmed two important issues faced by market and street vendors, particularly by women vendors: one is the fight against harassment and evictions of small traders; the other is the fight for social protections, such as access to health services and income security. And it has amplified the demands of women vendors for the right to formalise their work and to live free from violence. In this edition, we also share a case of how women from Uganda’s lakeshore communities showcased the influence of transforming data into compelling evidence to support women’s engagement in policy debate and building solidarity to fight for just food systems.

Read the latest issue here.

For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org

CEDAW Nepal: Government must ensure disadvantaged women’s access to employment and decision-making

Posted on by fredsaxo

Women and girls in Nepal, in particularly those belonging to marginalized communities, like rural and indigenous women, are more likely to be poor than males, despite the significant contribution they make to the economy.

In Nepal land, forest and river resources play a vital role in rural women's day-to-day livelihood. Most of them sustain their livelihoods and supplement their income from resources in forests, rivers and wetlands. FIAN Nepal in its parallel report to the CEDAW highlights how marginalized Dalit and indigenous women are denied employment with equal and living wages and lack of access to agricultural land and social security.

 “In FIAN Nepal’s experience, women farmers, indigenous and Dalit women are facing extreme food insecurity when they are working full time as farmers,” says Tilak Adhikari, FIAN Nepal Programme Manager.

“The local government operating programs have a focus on farmers, however, women farmers, especially from marginalized indigenous and Dalit communities, are not able to access the programs due to not being able to follow the complicated procedure adopted by government, and due to nepotism and widespread corruption.”

The parallel report further sheds light on the impact of industrial destruction and pollution on women’s right to safe drinking water and a clean and healthy environment. It also highlights the negative impact of declining agriculture production, deteriorating health of livestock, landslides and other environmental challenges. It shows how women and girls disproportionately suffer the impacts of climate change and environmental destruction due to their greater reliance on natural resources and primary roles in securing food, water and fuel.

The CEDAW Committee, in its concluding remarks, expressed concerns, that in particular, rural women, indigenous women, migrant women, women with disabilities and women living in poverty, are disproportionately affected by climate change related impacts including natural disasters and the loss of biodiversity. It regreted the lack of consultations with rural and Indigenous women on construction projects by foreign investors and private enterprises.

The committee recommended the government of Nepal to enable women’s active participation in the creation and operation of new funding arrangements for responding to environmental loss and damage and to ensure that women are equally represented in the development, adoption and implementation of legislation, policies and programmes on climate change, disaster response and disaster risk reduction.            

“The government must apply special gender-sensitive support mechanisms to eliminate poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and the lack of enjoyment of the right to adequate food and nutrition among women and girls particularly of those groups who belong to underprivileged and marginalized communities,” says Laxmi Gurung, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator at FIAN Nepal.

“This includes climate and environmental justice for women and girls and the support of the transition to agroecology and other traditional ways of livelihood including fishing”.

Download the FIAN Nepal parallel report here

For more information, please contact Sabine Pabst pabst@fian.org

Sowers of Life and Resistance: Building collective feminist leadership for food sovereignty

Posted on by fredsaxo

The Sowers of Life and Resistance booklet is a profound testimony of women and young women from across the region who participated in the first edition of the Feminist School, organized by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. This initiative provided a much-needed political and educational space to confront the intersecting challenges of patriarchy, racism, and neoliberalism.

The school, held virtually and in-person throughout 2023, was about more than training — it was a collective reimagining of food power relations within food systems. With sessions addressing agroecology, the linkage of the right to food and women’s rights, the impact of systemic gender violence, and the construction of intergenerational collective leadership, the participants shared experiences, knowledge, and tools to strengthen their communities and struggles.

“We are not just defending food sovereignty; we are transforming relationships with nature and within our communities,” shared one participant. “Through collective care and action, we amplify our voices and confront injustices that silence us.”

The booklet invites readers into this vibrant journey, offering reflections and methodologies that grassroots women leaders are using within their territories and organizations. Chapters cover themes such as feminist economy, political participation, and the fight against gender violence, emphasizing agroecology and collective care as vital practices for resistance against all forms of discrimination.

By weaving together diverse knowledge systems and the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous and Afro-descendant women, the school builds bridges across generations. Its methodologies, like the Agroecological Booklog, reveal the hidden contributions of women to local economies, highlighting their vital role in food production and care.

“Without feminism, there is no agroecology,” states the booklet, which calls for a depatriarchalization of food systems and governance. This collective effort challenges the exploitation of women’s labor and the corporate control of resources, advocating instead for equitable policies rooted in solidarity and sustainability.

As a living document, the booklet aims to inspire action in communities worldwide, providing tools to replicate the school’s methodologies and continue the fight for a feminist and human rights-based transformation of corporate food systems and towards food sovereignty.

Download the booklet in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

 

For more information please contact Teresa Maisano: maisano@fian.org

CEDAW: Women in Benin facing violations of human rights due to forced eviction

Posted on by fredsaxo

Two civil society groups, Organisation Non Gouvernementale d’Appui au Militantisme et à l’Autonomisation d’un Monde Rural Responsable et Engagé (AMARRE-Bénin) and Coopérative des Artisans-Maraichers-Pêcheurs de Ouidah (AMAPECH) have submitted a parallel report on Benin – with the support of FIAN International – to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Forced evictions in Kouvènanfidé village, to make way for a holiday resort and coastal road, have resulted in multiple violations of human rights including the right to food and nutrition, right to land, right to water, right to adequate housing, right to health, right to education, right to work, right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, right to cultural life and the right to obtain justice and redress in a timely manner. Although all community members have been affected, this parallel report focused on women’s rights.

Community members have lost property and assets including houses, land, crops and income generating means that helped them to feed themselves and be financially independent. Today they live in precarious conditions with rising poverty and uncertainty for the future.

“Forced eviction have caused physical and psychological suffering to community members and particularly women. Pregnant and breastfeeding women find it hard to have enough nutrients for their infants and children. At the same time when they are sick, it is very difficult for them to access health centers, which are very far from the relocation site,” says Jerry Tciakpe, project and communication manager at AMARRE-Bénin.

The lack of adequate compensation continues to push community members further into hardship, particularly among those who were not relocated. Some community members sleep outdoors and women in particular are exposed to a range of dangers, including sexual violence.

“The government of Benin must comply more with its international human rights obligations and ensure particularly that women’s rights are protected in this case of forced eviction,” says Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International

“Those responsible for the human rights violations must be held accountable,”.

Read the full CEDAW parallel report on Benin here.

For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

Photo credit: AMARRE-Bénin

CESCR: Malawi must ensure economic, social and cultural rights of communities affected by land grabbing

Posted on by fredsaxo

The Center for Social Concern in Malawi, with support from FIAN international has submitted a parallel report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights. The report focuses on human rights violations linked to land grabbing and forced eviction of community members from Phanga Village in Dedza district. Their land was acquired by the South African company Crown Plantations and community members were relocated 200 km away from their land in Mchinji District.

The loss of the land has caused several human rights violations including the right to food and nutrition, the right to land, water, health, education and adequate housing, as well as women’s rights. The report deplored the manner in which the affected community lost their land without adequate compensation.

“Community members have lost their livelihood and today they live in a precarious situation. Justice must be done and those responsible for the violations of community members’ human rights must be held accountable,” says Tobias Jere, Project manager at the Center for Social Concern, a faith-based organization that promotes a just society.

The affected community members have been pushed into poverty and cannot feed themselves adequately. The new land, allocated through the government, is less fertile and they are unable to cultivate their customary crops. The change of culturally accepted meals, which are healthy and nutritious has increased wasting, stunting and left many children underweight. Malnutrition has increased among adults, significantly impacting pregnant and breastfeeding women. Additionally, affected community members lack sufficient access to health centers and irrigation. They cannot afford to buy materials to construct adequate houses and children continue to drop out of school due to poverty.

“The government of Malawi must ensure that the economic, social and cultural rights of community members affected by land grabbing in Phanga Village in Dedza district are protected. Equally, it must ensure that in the new relocation district of Mchinji, the soil quality is improved and legal framework is put in place to ensure that customary rights over the land tenure gives the ownership of the land to affected community members,” says Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International.

Read the full ESCR parallel report on Malawi here.

For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

On International Women's Day, who cares for the caregivers?

Posted on by fredsaxo

Care work consists of essential activities to guarantee the life of people, living beings and the planet. It has been historically carried out by women, based on the sexual division of labor in a framework of patriarchal power relations, which also meant that it has been largely invisible or low status. Paid and unpaid care work has led to and reproduced discrimination, gender inequalities and violence.

Privilege and oppression are power dynamics that intersect in caregiving contexts and relationships. Race, class, ethnicity, and other social identities intersect with gender to shape experiences of caregiving. To craft genuinely caring politics, we must acknowledge that care work includes many aspects of life from the individual perspective of self-care to the care of households and communities.

What is Food Care?

Care work includes food care: for what we eat, how we eat, who eats and when.  

Food systems, like care work, also rely on interdependent relations. Rural women’s care work is crucial to food production, processing, distribution and access. This interdependence also raises questions around redistribution, autonomy, sovereignty over bodies, love, relations, resources and life itself. Food is an act of love. And so is care.

The corporate food system anchors this interdependence in unequal power relations, with harmful consequences such as the homogenization of diets, the loss of biodiversity and the exploitation of unpaid care work done by the vast majority of black, indigenous, peasant, fisherwomen and rural women.

Why should we care?

The current system of production, distribution and consumption of food and other goods overexploits the productive and reproductive work of women, causing deep inequalities and sickening human beings and the planet.  

Rural women represent one third of the global population but 36% of the agricultural labor force yet earn 20% less than men. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, more than 20% of agricultural employees in Latin America and the Caribbean are women. Also in that region, women spend three times as much time on domestic work and unpaid care compared to men. In addition, there is a significant gap between women in urban and rural areas, with the latter spending three to ten hours more on daily care work than women in urban areas. 

Hegemonic narratives around care in food systems fail to look beyond recognition of these facts and leave aside the redistribution and representation of the agency of rural and indigenous women who produce food. Likewise, food systems see food only as the act of distribution and supply, ignoring all the care work that is behind real peasant-produced food.

There is a strong link between informal labor and the marginalization and impoverishment of rural and indigenous women. They are considered the most vulnerable group in society, as they mainly work as unpaid laborers on family farms with low pay, hazardous conditions, and without social security coverage. They face multiple obstacles to independence and economic autonomy. In contexts of crises, rural and indigenous women are most affected by poor access to resources, services and information, as well as by the heavy burden of care work and discriminatory traditional social norms.

In the current context of multiple and interrelated crises, a radical transformation of industrial food systems and the urgency of a transition to just, healthy, sustainable, and violence-free food systems is crucial. The feminist agenda and the right to food and food sovereignty agenda need each other more than ever to face the magnitude of current challenges. Reciprocity and cross-pollination should be the hallmarks of the strategy ahead for both living beings and the planet. Food, care, self-care and community care must be at the core of a much needed paradigm shift.

How can we care?

Social movements and civil society can help to push forward the care paradigm by:

  • Putting the human rights of caregivers at the center of the global care agenda.

  • Raising awareness of care work around food by peasant, indigenous and rural women. 

  • Collectively building action tools to position care in the political agenda.

  • Generating processes of mutual care and self-care relationships.

  • Advocate for the recognition and redistribution of care and domestic work, as well as remuneration and representation of care workers or caregivers.

For more information or media interviews please contact Amanda Cordova Gonzales at cordova-gonzales@fian.org 

Uganda must comply with the CEDAW recommendations in Kaweri Coffee Plantation case

Posted on by fredsaxo

For more than two decades, evictees from Mubende District in Uganda have sought compensation for their brutal displacement from a vast tract of land that was converted into a plantation to supply coffee beans to the world’s top trader of the commodity. While some are shortly due to receive compensation, others are awaiting a June court hearing on their claims.

The CEDAW committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women raised concerns earlier this year over “the still outstanding settlement of the incident in court” and highlighted the “dispossessions of land owned by women and forced evictions of women, who constitute three quarters of the workforce in the agricultural sector.”

It called on Uganda to:

  1. Establish a legal framework to ensure that agro-industrial projects and the activities of extractive industries do not undermine rural women’s rights to land ownership and their livelihoods and ensure that such ventures are permitted only after gender-impact assessments involving rural women have been undertaken;
  2. Ensure that evictions are court-ordered and subject to strict procedural safeguards in line with international standards, and expedite court proceedings for prompt and adequate compensation and rehabilitation in the Mubende land evictions case, while observing the principle of separation of powers;
  3. Ensure that perpetrators of violent acts against women in fishing communities are prosecuted and adequately punished, including through a referral for criminal proceedings under the Leadership Code Act 2002, where appropriate, decriminalize fish smoking and support the development of alternative agro-processing economic activity for rural women;

On August 17, 2001, the Ugandan army began violently evicting over 4,000 villagers from 2,524 hectares of land in Kitemba, Luwunga, Kijunga and Kiryamakobe.

Authorities ordered the eviction to make way for a 99-year lease of the area to Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd., owned by the Germany-based Neumann Kaffee Gruppe.

FIAN will continue to monitor the implementation of the CEDAW recommendations to Uganda – including those related to alleged witchcraft and violence against fisherfolk – to ensure that the rights of women in Uganda are fully protected and respected.

For queries and additional information, contact Valentin Hategekimana, FIAN International Africa coordinator at hategekimana@fian.org.

 

Ugandan army must cease violence against fisherfolk on Lake Victoria

Posted on by fredsaxo

FIAN calls on the Ugandan government to stop the criminalization of small-scale fishing and ongoing human rights violations.

Enforcing a 2017 directive to combat illegal fishing, the army has confiscated equipment, burned fishing boats and intimidated and harassed fisherfolk. Beatings are commonplace and property has been burned down. Young fishermen have died during operations by the armed forces. Many families were left in abject poverty as all their savings were invested in subsistence fishing.

“All my boats were burned when the army operations began,” said one fisherman in Mukono district, adding that Uganda’s fishing regulations make it impossible to earn a living.

“The nets they want us to use are so expensive, the requirements are expensive, the boat engine is expensive as well as the size of the boat needed … Everything is expensive, we request the government to help us, we no longer have food to eat.”

His experience is shared by many fisherfolk supported by FIAN Uganda, which has held human rights training sessions in the area.

“The government brought the army under the guise of protecting us. But our men are suffering because of this and we are suffering too,” said one fisherwoman and mother of four.

“They find them on the lake and claim that the boat is not of the standard size and that the nets are illegal, and the fish caught is also still young … We request the government to help us on that issue. It should also ensure that while making laws, they should come to us for consultation.”

Uganda has gazetted the fisheries and aquaculture Bill in 2020. The Bill, in its current form, poses threats to various human rights of both a civil and political nature such as freedom from torture and the right to a fair hearing, as well as those of an economic, social and cultural nature such as the right to adequate food.

Uganda has over a thousand kilometres of shoreline and fishing is one source of income for many communities living in extreme poverty. Women are particularly active in small-scale fisheries as they are generally responsible for drying, processing and selling the fish, as well as feeding their households.

Lake Victoria is an important source of food for several East African countries. Overfishing, especially of fish for export, combined with pollution from industry and agribusiness is threatening the livelihoods of millions.

For queries and additional information, you may contact Valentin Hategekimana, FIAN International Africa coordinator at hategekimana@fian.org.

THE TASTE OF TRAGEDY-FLAVORED COFFEE

Posted on by fredsaxo

Residents of Uganda’s Mubende District have decried the lack of justice for their long suffering and oppression as a result of their brutal displacement from a vast tract of land that was converted into a plantation to supply coffee beans to the world’s top trader of the commodity.

“This day marks the 20th year of our violent eviction and the perpetuation of injustice against us. As people around the world enjoy billions of cups of coffee every day, we continue bearing the brunt of this profit-driven coffee growing enterprise that made us taste tragedy and stripped us of all our rights to live with dignity,” said Peter Bareke Kayiira, the spokesperson of the evictees.

On August 17, 2001, the Ugandan army started to drive away Kayiira and approximately 4,000 other Mubende residents from their 2,524-hectare land in the villages of Kitemba, Luwunga, Kijunga and Kiryamakobe.

The forcible eviction was carried out by the state of Uganda to give way to the 99-year lease of the landholding to Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd., which is wholly owned by the Germany-based Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, the world's leading green coffee service and trading group with over 50 companies operating in 26 countries.

Rights continuously violated

The evictees suffered from violence and lost everything they had during the five-day eviction from August 17 to 21, 2001.

They were threatened and forced to leave their homes at gunpoint and many of them were beaten up in the process. Their houses were burned down, their movable properties looted, and their crops destroyed.

The villages’ clinic and churches were demolished, while their primary school was eventually turned into the plantation’s headquarters. Deaths and diseases ensued among the villagers after they were forced out of their land.

Until now, the evictees, mostly engaged in casual labor with meager incomes, continue to live in dire situation with their rights to food, water, nutrition, health, work, and education continuously violated. 

Their right to enjoyment of cultural life and right to get timely justice and legal remedy are also being curtailed and disrespected.

This, despite the fact that all the said rights are guaranteed to the evictees and all citizens of Uganda through the state’s constitution and several international covenants and treaties that the country ratified, including the UN-adopted International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Covid-19 lockdown compounds problems caused by eviction

Compounding their predicament are the lockdown measures imposed in Uganda to contain the spread of Covid-19. With little or no land to carry out farming activities and movement restrictions that caused many of them to lose their already paltry income as casual workers, the problem of hunger became more intense among the evictees.

“Landlessness here in Uganda means lack of food. Rural families have to grow food for themselves. We have been having a lot of problems ever since the eviction, including food scarcity exacerbated by the onset of COVID-19. Hunger is on the rise and life is becoming more and more difficult,” said Kayiira. 

Moreover, in a recent report, FIAN Uganda noted that the number of domestic violence cases had increased among the evicted women following the Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd.’s takeover of the land.

The organization linked the problem to the lack of necessary resources for women to prepare meals for their husbands and children (such as bananas, maize, potatoes, rice and beans) because they were deprived of their food crops and also water and firewood for cooking as a result of their eviction.

FIAN Uganda also said there was a rise in the number of pregnancies among female teenage evictees, who were said to have offered sex to men in exchange for food or money.

Pleas for justice fall on deaf ears

The Kaweri evictees have been seeking justice since 2002, the year they sued the Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd. and the Ugandan government before the country’s high court.

However, until today, they have neither been compensated for the loss of their property nor obtained the restitution of their land or any other land to restart their lives.

In 2019, the court ordered a mediation process towards an out of court settlement, which is still ongoing.

Some of the evictees agreed with the process despite not having any assurance of being fully compensated at some point. Others want to pursue a full trial so that justice can be fully served and those responsible for their plight can be held accountable.

A woman evictee, who was just seven years old when the eviction took place in 2001, is demanding full compensation from the Ugandan state but lamented that it evidently lacked the political will to do so.

“Some of us have died already. But up to now, we are still waiting for justice,” she said.

Governments of Uganda, Germany must not tolerate impunity

The evictees have also brought their case before international bodies to compel both the Ugandan and German governments to act on their pleas.

In 2015, the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) urged the Ugandan government to “take immediate measures to ensure that the rights of the Mubende community are restored as well as of all other forcibly evicted communities.”

The committee also told the state to “consider developing a legal framework on forced evictions, which includes provisions on effective and meaningful consultation, adequate legal remedies, and compensation.”

In 2017, the UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recommended that the German government “introduce effective mechanisms to investigate complaints filed against” transnational companies, particularly large-scale agricultural firms registered or domiciled in the state party “with a mandate to, inter alia, receive complaints and conduct independent investigations.”

The committee also advised the German government to “adopt concrete measures, including a redress mechanism to facilitate access to justice for women victims of human rights violations…”

However, neither the state of Uganda nor the state of Germany has followed the recommendations from the CESCR and CEDAW.

Valentin Hategekimana, coordinator for Africa at FIAN International, urged the two governments to “end the injustice long suffered by the evictees.”

READ: FIAN International's appeal to the German Gov't to Restore the Rights of Uganda's Kaweri Evictees

READ: FIAN International's appeal to Ugandan gov't: Comply with int'l rights obligation in favor of Kaweri evictees

“They have suffered a lot. Unfortunately, until today there is pure impunity for those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in this case. This situation cannot be endlessly tolerated,” he said.

For queries and additional information, contact Valentin Hategekimana, FIAN International Africa coordinator at hategekimana@fian.org.