Pulling The Apron Strings
	Special Report by Hanne - Vibeke Holst
	There's Something About Edith
	Foreningen: Sex & Samfund

Danish writer and journalist Hanne-Vibeke Holst let herself be seduced in Uganda. Here, the men of power officially advocate the emancipation of women. Unofficially, however, the Ugandan male is still conducting himself as the lord and master, feeling at liberty to beat, rape and infect young girls with AIDS. Now both women and donor countries demand that the man take up responsibility for his own behavior. It's called "male involvement," the hottest issue in the aid business.

During the long hours of our flight over the red sands of the Sahara, I'm reading about the plagues of Africa. I am a member of a European delegation of parliamentarians and reporters invited to Uganda to study reproductive health, a dry technical term for everything concerned with reproduction and sexuality. In this part of the world, what should speak of the joy of bringing children into the world, of sensuality and sighing pleasure, covers a catalogue of problems as endless as the desert below us: HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancies, maternal mortality, infant mortality, rape, sexual abuse of minors, sexually transmitted diseases, female genital mutilation (FGM).

We are in the middle of the second movie of our flight, The Sixth Sense, a thriller. I'm quite prepared to let it scare me silly, but what makes my hair stand on end is the report. The statistics are appalling. It is women, above all, that are embodied in the figures: 43 per cent of young girls aged 15 to 19 have already gone through their first pregnancy, 506 out of 100,000 will die later from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. If the girls themselves survive giving birth, their offspring, however, will be at risk: 97 out of 1,000 newborn infants will die, 147 of 1,000 children will have perished before they reach their fifth birthdays.

(And boy children will be kept alive at the expense of girl children.) However, despite the high infant and child mortality rates, most people will end up having a numerous family - a Ugandan girl will give birth to an average of seven children. As only a small number of married women (15%) use contraception, she will, in other words, keep having children until she drops. This happens early, the life expectancy among Ugandan women being about 43 years. Lurking behind this figure is a four-letter tragedy - AIDS. Presently, close to a million of Uganda's 20 million inhabitants are infected, 2 million have died already during this epidemic that has hit practically every family "taking our future, the young people".

Here is another instance where the women are double victims: Not only are they in majority among the young people infected, they also face total ostracism when the disease can no longer be concealed. The husband, typically the one who has transmitted the disease to his wife, denies both his own promiscuity and disease and throws out his wife from their home, and "a woman without a man is worth nothing in Africa". Then, the husband will take a new wife, whom he promptly infects, and so on and so forth. And yes, the children are victimized too. But why then, we emancipated Scandinavians will ask, doesn't she simply demand that her husband or boyfriend use a condom? Because, despite massive information drives, she lacks both the knowledge, the access to contraception, and above all self-esteem. And so she also lacks the ability and the means to take a stand in a "sexual negotiation." After l, she is living on a continent where traditionally girl children have d (and still have) the lowest status and have been mainly brought up to w down to the man. She actually belongs to the man. As seen from the viewpoint of the rich donor countries, this massive oppression is not only unacceptable, it is also adverse to progress. It has been recognized that the equal status of women is key to development, because it is the women that bring up the new generations as well as being in charge of production. It is, as they say, the women who prepare the soil. For these reasons, gender has been a focal issue in the field of development work since the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. Everyone in the aid business speaks of the necessity of empowerment, enhancing women's status and opportunities, as a matter of course. One example is the Danish national aid agency DANIDA under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs that stipulates as one of the conditions for receiving aid that gender equality must be incorporated into the programs and projects, "even when we build roads!" This goes for Uganda as well, where Denmark with its massive aid ranges among the top three donor countries.

So there's hope, and thus cheered I meet the first officials from Kampala's ministries and administration. Their briefings on the state of the nation seem amazingly candid, they admit, point-blank, that they are swamped with problems. While they are proud to have succeeded in turning the AIDS curve in Uganda, where the number of newly infected has dropped significantly, "at least in the cities, we may still expect an infection boom in the rural areas, so we must not flag in our efforts." Efforts that are based on an openness unprecedented in Africa. Contrary to other African countries where extramarital sex does not officially exist thus excluding the possibility of rampant AIDS, Uganda recognized the problem as early as in the late eighties and tried to do something about it. Mainly by means of information, distribution of condoms and the training of barefoot-helpers at the grassroots level. That the president, regarded by the population as the high chief, has spoken openly of AIDS has also had a huge significance. Official Kampala is also aware that especially the young girls are severely afflicted. Altogether, everyone seems to recognize that it is among women that the poorest of the poor are to be found. As they said at the office of the Population Secretariat, "We must actively support the process of giving women a new and more attractive role to play." Emphasized by the Minister of Finance: "Not only for the sake of the women themselves, but for the sake of the country as well." Actually, during my one-week visit to "The Pearl of Africa," it was not possible to meet a man in a suit who didn't speak warmly in favor of emancipation and mainstreaming of women. Uganda has a Ministry of Gender and Community Development, a national gender equality policy, and at the parliamentarian level a certain type of gender quote system has even been introduced reserving a certain number of seats for women. (Still in the supreme minority, however, with a representation of less than 20 per cent). President Museveni is also known for his support to women's rights, and the First Lady of the country is a respected and charismatic figure. And although 65% of Ugandan women are illiterate, and most of them have received only inadequate schooling, there's a significant stratum of well-educated and keenly conscious women participating in both the formulation as well as the implementation of political visions. We met them in every context, even out in the districts, proud and rhetorically compelling women, each and every one of them seeming to function in their own right, never letting themselves be overshadowed by the men by whom they were outnumbered, but who mentally shrunk in their company. As a Danish diplomat put it during the official state dinner where, incidentally, no Ugandan women were invited to sit in the places of honor: "The women are the backbone of Africa. They cultivate the land, they head the waterworks, they are the enterprising ones."

It was our last but one night in the country, and I was close to total surrender. Hurrah! A feminist development country! At that point, I was still euphoric after that morning's reception by the vice- president, Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe. Yet another of these outspoken women, an academic and the owner of a chicken farm who, with disarming risibility, called a cow a cow, discrimination discrimination. She spoke passionately of the need for mobilization - "I am very happy to do something for the women. But we cannot change anything here from Kampala. We can map out a course, but change itself must come about out in the districts. That's why even we top politicians must travel to the most remote districts to speak to ordinary people in villages so far away that they never see a newspaper, haven't had cash money in their hands and hardly listen to the radio. We have to look into the eyes of the women, touch them, to understand what they think and feel, so that we may help them improve their situation. The actual main problem for the women is their poverty and lack of schooling. But given a practical and financial hand, they are perfectly capable of doing something for themselves. Sometimes it can be just a question of giving a cow, a couple of chickens or a few pounds of coffee beans for sowing. This can bring new wealth to an entire village! This way, a family could afford to have more than one pair of shoes, so the girls can go to church too, and maybe there will be enough money for a school uniform and a blanket for each child."

The vice president literally put weight behind her words by insisting that the entire delegation of close to thirty people should have an "Ugandan hug" when we said goodbye. So she could feel us. Like I said, I could feel her for the rest of the day, and during my conversation with the diplomat I came out strong for the fair Speciosa as a likely presidential candidate at the next elections. A naive notion which the diplomat promptly deflated with an overbearing laugh: "Look! They all say that they are for equality and empowerment and so on. That is the politically correct thing, and they have to say that in order to please the donors. But in real life, none of the gentlemen in this room would dream of giving up their privileges. On the contrary, this thing about the women is something they are sort of snickering about behind their hands, like, you know, oh well. And when it comes to letting themselves be governed by a woman, oh no, there's probably no one who can see that."

Discouraging, but a sound corrective to the glossy picture postcard. During dinner, I ask my dinner partner, a young male parliamentarian from the provinces, if it's true that this solidarity with women is purely ornamental. He lowers his voice into a soft whisper. Apparently this is the deeply controversial core of the issue: "Personally, I fully advocate equal status for women. I am ready for female leadership and I am, with all my heart, a great fan of the vice president. It has been tried to undermine her by pushing charges of corruption, but fortunately she has had the support of the president. Museveni's intentions are genuine enough, you can rely on him. He truly supports the women. But as to the others . . . between us, it's true that there's a lot of hypocrisy. Many of them are more concerned with waging war than with providing maternity clinics for the women. For instance, when we try to pass legislation in Parliament intended to establish genuine rights for women, there's actually a huge resistance from the men. Add to this the cultural resistance . . . even the highly educated Ugandan male sees woman as an inferior being. So, you could quite easily see, let's say, a man from this assembly, make a fine speech on women's rights, then go home and beat up the wife, keep a mistress or downright strut his stuff as a sugardaddy."

My eyes are about to pop onto my plate with Hotel Sheraton's continental chicken on its bed of mashed, boiled bananas. A sugardaddy is a particular monstrosity known in many development countries where very young poor girls, often at the prompting of their parents, let themselves be "waited upon" by older men, who, in exchange for a few coins, a lipstick or a couple of jangling bracelets, enjoy sexual favors. Some men have lived in the honest misapprehension that they could be saved from their AIDS by being "purified" by a virgin. But most just calculate that the danger of infection will be less the younger and less used the girl is. Anyway, when the girl finds herself pregnant or HIV-infected, the previously affectionate sugardaddy has usually disappeared in a cloud of red dust, and the girl is left with the shame, the disease and an unwanted fetus, which often, in her despair, she will try to get rid of under the most bloody and painful circumstances. In other words, what my dinner partner is saying, off the record, is that these important men in this grand hall, are behaving precisely as irresponsibly as most other men in the Ugandan community. Because, as my dinner partner points out, statistically some of them must be infected. And he doesn't believe that this will make them practice abstinence. "No, no, I don't think so!" And this brings us to the most recent fashion words in the aid vocabulary: Male behavior and male involvement, i.e. the issue of men becoming involved as responsible partners, fathers and decision-makers. As a wise woman points out during one of our meetings: "For far too long we have focused on women, as if the woman is the problem. Well, she isn't. She's the victim. If we are to get any further, men must recognize their responsibility. They must change their behavior."

The concrete meaning of this will become clear if you read the newspapers for a week or so. Every morning the New Vision, a daily government newspaper in English, is slipped in under the door of my hotel room. And so, every morning I wake up to fresh headlines of yet another armed fight in the North where the government army is fighting "rebel troops" from the Congo. Officially, 10 per cent of the GNP is spent on the armed forces, unofficially the figure is at least double. Money consequently not available for health, education, development. And every day has its stories of girl children born clandestinely and put to death, of domestic rapes and of young girls sexually violated and abused - they are actually warned against being alone with their schoolteacher or minister! The girls are also urged to avoid sleeping in the same room as their fathers, uncles or cousins to prevent incest. There is a raging discussion whether it is right for very young girls, not yet out of puberty, to be married off, and there's an ongoing debate on polygamy- you will see 12-year-old boys with two wives! - and on women's lack of hereditary rights. But what is most sensational is probably the well- known woman parliamentarian, who hits the front pages when she urges the young girls themselves to put the condom on the boys. This parliamentarian, Zo' Bakoko Bakoru, is one of those tough ladies that I have met during the week. She is the widowed mother of three, trained as a nurse in Scotland, and one of the frontier fighters. "We women in Parliament work in cross-political networks. We have to, because we have a hard time getting our rights through," she says at that point. "Actually that's our biggest problem, our blatant lack of rights over anything! Money, land, our homes, our own bodies! Domestic violence and rape are facts! We have to face that! And we must demand that the perpetrators are punished. That the police take the cases seriously, that families don't close their eyes to incest in order to avoid scandal. The men must become involved now, or we'll get nowhere. At least they could learn to use a condom. And then, please, not to prick holes in it!"

I read no reports as I fly North with Kenya Airways. I have seen them all now - live: The AIDS-stricken women, the streetwalkers, the young mother; the one that sat helplessly, sunken in despondency, waiting for her tiny, three months premature, baby to expire on a blanket at the incubator-less district hospital. I have seen the prostitutes in the hotel bar, sugardaddies on the prowl, hardworking country women queuing up at the water pump. I have talked to the 17-year-old who wanted to be a politician (but probably never will be), to the 19-year-old who wanted her own small shop (but probably never will have), and to the16-year-old who wanted to get an apprenticeship at a hotel (but probably never will). I have also talked to the wild woman in the faraway village who used to perform the bloody female circumcisions (FGM), but who has now, through a unique united effort from the Family Planning Office and the local Council of Elders, stopped: "I have realized that it is no use. The girls yell and scream, and it is no good." And finally I have talked to those who write the reports. The aid workers from UNICEF, UNFPA, DANIDA. There are still lots of problems, loads of frustrations and disappointments. Two steps forward and one step back. But everyone agree that despite everything, there's progress for the women of Uganda. And there are good, sincere men. So, there's also hope, and I actually go home in a state of mind so uplifted, that I allow myself a laugh or two during Bowfinger, this flight's movie comedy.

But, as one of the aid people, a young man, e-mails to me, when I'm back in Copenhagen: "Male involvement is the new hot word in the field of international development aid. Beijing was a fantastic success for the women of the world, but not until now has the international community begun to recognize that gender empowerment, gender mainstreaming and all the other fashionable words will not lead to the desired result, to give women their rightful status in communities all over the world, unless the men are involved." He is so right.

Translation: Kirsten Kincaid

Her mother sent her to a boarding school when she was five to be chastened into an obedient Ugandan girl. No such luck. All her life, Edith Mukisa has fought for the right to be herself. She has succeeded to the point where she has become one of the leading figures of Uganda - for one, thanks to her father.

When I meet Edith for the first time, I have been in Uganda for three days. Standing under shady trees with the authority of a leader. she gives us a short and concise briefing on the contraception and information clinic for adolescents, the Naguru Teenage Information and Health Center, which has set a standard for how information work can be done with measurable success. This is where literally thousands of young people have learned to use the lifesaving condom, to speak openly of their sexuality, and so have been enabled to protect themselves against the virus that rages like a pestilence among the young generations of Africa. Edith Mukisa has built up the center, and no one harbors any doubt that it is her warm, charismatic personality that is the spirit of the place. As a young UNFPA aid worker puts it: "Edith is the best in town. Her reputation is international. She's always the one who dares put her finger on the most sore spot." He has a thing about her, and so have I. I listen to her with mounting fascination, never doubting that I stand face to face with the role model incarnate - the hope of the women of Africa. Also, I am personally curious; the fight for women's rights is universal after all, so I have to get under her coffee-colored skin to find out how she has done it -- broken the gender pattern.

After a couple of days, I return to interview her. Her laughter greets me from her small office. Oh, hello! How are you? When she laughs, it's like the sudden scattering of loudly twittering birds. Apart from the fact that her voice is dark, her English soft as chocolate fudge, I wish I had brought a tape recorder. So I could keep that voice and wouldn't have to take my eyes from her face to look down on my pad while Edith tells her story.

"Okay, I am 37 years old. I come from the Jinja district in the Eastern part of Uganda. I was the youngest of six children - I have four elder brothers and a sister. Our family was relatively wealthy, we belong to a royal clan, and my father had a good job at Barclay's Bank here in Kampala. My mother was a teacher but that didn't mean her taking an especially progressive view in relation to us girls. Quite the contrary, right from the time when I was a very small girl, she tried to raise me to become a good submissive Ugandan girl. But I rebelled from the very start - why should we girls do all the hard housework and chores while my brothers simply went scot-free? Why couldn't I climb trees and play wild games? Why were girls supposed to be good and keep quiet? My mother was appalled - don't do that! Girls don't do these things! She tried to chasten me, but I complained to my father. And my father took my side - girls and boys are born equal! They should have equal rights!"

"An unusual father?"

"My father was my friend. I have my father to thank for everything. He was educated, well-informed and very open-minded. He and my mother were constantly fighting about me and my upbringing. When I was five, she took the consequence and sent me to a boarding school for girls. By then, she had already realized that she wouldn't be able to break me on her own. But the school wasn't able to either. On the contrary, as I was now without reach of my mother's harmful influence - and I have to say in her defense, that she didn't know any better - I truly recognized my potential. I knew that I would be able to manage my own life. So I studied, and I studied, I learned everything I could, I became the president of the debate club and the drama society. At the same time, I took care to have a lot of male friends that I could get together with, have discussions with and compete with. Not because I didn't like the girls, but they were too weak. I needed the boys as my opponents, to harden me. When I was 15, I knew that my mother couldn't check me anymore. I had become too strong for her. So at that point, I informed her that I intended to make my own decisions, that I wanted an education and a job and that I wasn't going to marry. Ever. She didn't say a word. She knew the battle was lost. And my father backed me up, as usual. Then I went to university where I studied psychology. That's where I had my second great experience. There were student riots, I was among the protesters as one of the very few girls there. Then, when things got rough, and they brought in tear gas and police, I stayed. I didn't run, although I was frightened. I overcame my fear. It was a very great thing for me to discover the extent of my own courage."

Edith's voice has taken on a rich resonance.

"Because, you know, that was when I decided to survive."

I nod my understanding. In Africa that's a statement with a very specific meaning. The life expectancy for women in Uganda is about 43 years old. "That was exactly why I didn't want to get married. I had seen how weak women became in marriage. They lose everything while the husband can behave completely irresponsibly and get away with it. So I have never suffered under the misconception that a man was required to make me happy. On the other hand, I saw how great a joy the children was. So I wanted children! Children without a husband! And so, that's the way it has turned out!"

The birds scatter, Edith is laughing.

"So you have children, but no husband?" "That's right. I have two boys of eleven and two by the same father. He is my love, I care about him deeply, and I am very faithful. But I don't want to live with him. I have built my own house, and he drops by to spend a day or an evening with us and things like that. He has accepted that, and it works out fine. After all, he has his own too."

"What do 'they' say to this arrangement?"

"People find it very strange. Actually, I don't really think there's anyone who understands it. We are probably the only people in Uganda living like this! The only reason why it's possible is because the children's father is such an unusual man. He's a university lecturer and extremely tolerant. And once again, I must thank my own father for having given me his total love and support. When I was quite young he actually warned me against marriage - 'men can be good, but you have to take care, because they can also be very destructive!' Unfortunately he is dead now - he was an alcoholic and died from liver failure. But he did reach the age of 79 and has taken his responsibilities seriously all his life. He was full of thought for us, took part in our lives and always asked about us - you know, like 'Is this really the right job for you? Maybe you should rather...?' He has never failed, not his family, not in his work, however that was possible with his alcohol abuse. He had a tremendous discipline, from which I have learned a lot. I took care of him during his final period at the hospital, we were confidants and very close, and after he died it turned out that he had appointed me as the principal heir and head of the family. The YOUNGEST DAUGHTER! My brothers were shocked, but they had to accept his decision. And so they have come to terms with it and listen to me and my good advice in family matters or in any problems and conflicts that might arise. As a matter of fact, two of my brothers are dead now, from AIDS."

"You are all personally affected by AIDS in this country...?"

"Yes. All of us. Just this week we had a death among the staff."

"... and yet you really don't seem grief-stricken or depressed?"

"Of course we grieve. But life has to go on, hasn't it. We cannot linger on our grief. Quite the opposite, we must keep happy and healthy! Go for happiness. As for myself, I spend a tremendous lot of time in my garden. I love to potter about, watering, weeding and snipping the flowers and just looking at them! The colors, the shapes...smelling them, cutting them, making bouquets. I do that every evening, and it gives me great peace and joy to walk among the flowers. I also take care to use my body - I swim at the Fairway Hotel, I exercise, and I love to dance. At least once a month I go out with my boyfriend. We eat, enjoy each other, meet with friends. Very simple, but it's the simple joys that you need to carry on. And then I read too, of course, to get fresh inspiration and fighting spirit!"

"What do you read?"

Edith doubles up in giggles. "Hillary Clinton! She is my idol! She's great! Like our own First Lady, really. We need that sort of role model to get on, because there's still a long way to go. Many African men really don't rate women above this piece of paper I have here on my desk - we're just trash! Even I, being a leader with a certain position, am constantly exposed to sexual harassment and gross discrimination. As a woman leader you still have to be, on one hand, particularly careful, and on the other hand make sure that you stand out, if not you'll just be ignored or taken for granted. But I have learned to look at myself as some sort of pioneer, who has to stop at regular intervals to give the others a chance to catch up. After all, our communities are dynamic, things move, but development requires patience. So you have to learn to wait, although the wasted lives of women and their lost potentials sometimes make me very angry. I put my faith in my own sons - my big son can cook and clean, he knows the entire problem complex, and he is the one educating his classmates for gender equality! I'm very proud of him."

"How do you envision your own future? Do you want to stay in Uganda to fight on?"

"You have an obligation to do something for your community. But quite frankly I think that I have served my time. Now it's time to do something for myself. Through my work I have traveled a lot, and this has given me an incentive to further educate myself at a Western university and then look for a job in an international agency. Where they can pay me what I'm worth and where I can work at a higher level. Actually, I've been accepted at the Karolinska Instituttet in Stockholm, Sweden, a medical university where I can take a bachelor's degree in sociology and specialize in reproductive health. Now all that I need is a scholarship. That's the hardest thing. I have tried to find sponsors for the past eight years without any luck. But, you'll see, I will succeed. So maybe next time we'll meet up North in your part of the world!"

Edith is laughing as she says goodbye and takes my hand. I cross my fingers. For our sake.

ABOUT THE DANISH FPA:

The Danish Family Planning Association (DFPA) with 25 member organizations is the leading association in Denmark in the field of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

Information and counseling on contraception has been central to the work of the DFPA, as is the promotion of compulsory sex education for young people in public schools.

Adolescents is primary target group

Forty years after its establishment, the Danish FPA's first priority is advocacy. The main target group of the FPA's work is adolescents. The DFPA believes that a wide range of information, education and communication is essential to promote sexual well-being and reproductive health. It serves as a watchdog on existing sexual and reproductive rights, and lobbies for improvements in legislation related to the quality of care of public services, information and school education.

As a part of its advocacy efforts, the DFPA runs services for youth throughout the country, such as a telephone hotline and a counseling service on the internet. It cooperates in the training and supervising of peer educators in the areas of sexuality and contraception.

The DFPA also runs a contraception/health clinic in the center of Copenhagen which offers contraceptive counseling, contraceptives for young people, emergency contraception, and tests for STDs. It also offers classroom visits for school pupils in gender sensitive sex education.

Furthermore, the FPA has elaborated a wide range of publications on the different modes of contraception. These publications are made available to all and they are free of charge.

Internationally engaged

The Danish FPA has always been an active member of the IPPF, serving on its central and regional governing bodies. The FPA acts as a professional consultant on international programs and services related to quality of care, sex education, male involvement, and other gender and reproductive health issues. The FPA is well renowned for its intensive international training programs on these issues as well as NGO management topics.

Over the years, the FPA has designed and implemented innovative projects in cooperation with local NGOs throughout the developing world. The three projects mentioned here are all well known: "Enhancing Gender Sensitivity and Responsiveness of Family Planning Personnel" in the Philippines, "Advocacy in Youth Reproductive Health", the first part in Vietnam was finalized last year, and the FPA is currently working on the second part in relation to Bangladesh, and finally the "Kangemi Women Empowerment Center on Sexual and Reproductive Rights" in Kenya, which is actually a project that through its holistic approach is trying to implement the main principles from The Cairo Platform of Action.

The Danish FPA has equally been involved in a number of projects as providers of technical assistance. Consultants have recently been in Vietnam giving two workshops in relation to the project "Support to the Improvement of Adolescent Reproductive Health."

Finally the DFPA welcomes several study groups every year from all over the world. During the year of 1999 the FPA hosted guests from Albania, Vietnam, Russia, Turkmenistan and Peru.

Face to Face in Denmark

As a Face to Face Campaign Partner, the Danish FPA launched its Face to program in November 1998. The launch was carried out as a half-day seminar. It was very well attended by both government ministers, agency officials, local NGOs, representatives from the press and other interested persons. One of the featured speakers was Waris Dirie, the Face to Face Campaign Spokesperson for the Elimination of FGM.

Goodwill Ambassador, Hanne-Vibeke Holst, will be presented to the Danish public at a conference in the national parliament May 29, 2000. The conference will be addressing the serious problems regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa.