Rosebell’s blog

Changes on my blog link

Changes on my blog link

Hello all,

I thank you for visiting my blog and for all those replies. I have decided to change my blog to wordpress because most of the people couldn't easily put comments. This is becuase Vox requires one to first sign up before posting a comment. I have moved the blog and will continue to pass on my views and updates on what I am up to.
Please follow: http://ugandajournalist.wordpress.com/

A K'jong mother

Next week on July 11, it will be the world population day. As usual we will get updates on different population issues and what interventions are needed to curb the growth. Uganda’s population is estimated to be about 32 million with a growth rate of 3.4 percent.

“Investing in women is a smart choice” is this year’s theme. I believe in the saying that when you educate a woman, you educate a nation. This is not to say when you educate men you’re not targeting a country but it simply shows the wide impact of women education. All the maternal deaths due to myths and ignorance about medical interventions would be partly prevented. You would increase their participation in debates on major issues affecting the country. Then women have an instrumental role they play in bringing up children and in most of our societies many times they actually raise children almost single-handedly so their education directly benefits their children.

Today the BBC has a story from a report by the French Institute for Demographic Studies which warns of a population time bomb for developing nations as the ratio of elderly people rises.

Most elderly people live in poverty. One way Uganda could avoid this is to invest more funds in providing contraceptives and more education of women and men on having smaller families. Fertility rate in Uganda is around 6.7. Which means on average Ugandans give birth to 6  to 7 children. If children were well planned for and well spaced many Ugandans would not be so poor in their old age. There’s a lot of unemployment which means that many children are not necessarily the solution. Many Ugandan youth still depend on their parents even up to the age of 30 as they hit the streets with no jobs. Once they get the jobs, they start having their own family and children and in the absence of social insurance and pensions, parents aren’t left with much to see them through their life.

So as the world marks the Population day, you will likely hear the President and some politicians say there’s no problem with giving birth to many children and they are right. But they don’t take the argument to the end. They must tell people to plan for the children and take into account the economic circumstances and the future. I am not saying poor people have no right to have children but rather that we think more about the implications of have many children and also we should know the days of a man having their land and cows and neighbours to take care of their families are almost long gone. Anyway we must ask what audacity do these politicians have to advocate for more numbers to the population when they have failed to plan for those already in the country.  Somehow they are also caught in the attitudes rather than giving logical solutions.

I just read this piece from International Magazine that a total of 31 African heads of state were assassinated in less than 40 years after independence.

This was brought forward by President of the Commission of the African Union (AU), Jean Ping, at the opening of the 15th session of the Executive Council of the AU.

This means that on average a Head of State was killed per year is a "regressive political developments disturbing.” African presidents are calling for  a coherent response to ensure minimise similar occurrences.
Just in March this year, the President of Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, was murdered and a coup followed. Similar events have occurred in Madagascar and Mauritania.

At the 12th Conference of Heads of State and Government of the AU in February in Addis Ababa, African leaders asked the AU Commission to submit recommendations for the implementation of adequate preventive measures against unconstitutional changes of government.

But no amount of recommendations will save African governments from coups. These leaders know what they should do to prevent coups but they aren’t doing it. They instead behave in a manner that can only encourage coups. For instance abrogating constitutions, stealing elections Kenyan and ZimbabweAfrica. Otherwise treating coups as though they are the cause of chaos rather than an outcome of certain misrule is not right.  And I believe sometimes coups are the only hope for many states. style, not allowing opposition voices is the norm in many countries. Every time you here a dictator has changed the constitution to give himself more terms in offices and at worst leave it open for a possible life presidency. Many citizens in many countries only wait for the hand of God to take away dictators. Corruption is soaring and nothing is done on merit in many African countries. With this situation someone needs to tell African leaders that you alone can prevent coups in

 A proposed law in Rwanda meant to stem the spread of HIV has been put on the spotlight. But what mostly stands out is the proposal to sterilise people who are mentally disabled. The Human Rights Watch has come out to say the proposal is as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

And Rwanda is being urged to drop a draft law.

The law as controversial as it may seem, I find HRW lacking context here by quoting this the crime against Humanity. The sterilization as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court looks sterilization with a purpose to extinct a certain population.

I think this proposed law needs a lot of debate than just judgement.  This idea that a government is out to hurt some citizens is not the way to look at it. I don’t wholly agree with the proposal but how HRW approached the proposal is what I beg disagree with. My first thoughts when I read the story were that this is a government trying to face difficulties faced by mentally disabled people. And back in UgandaSupporters of such a proposal may be thought to prevent such mentally disabled people from having children not for other reasons but for their own good and for those of families although the law if passed may face  many challenges in implemenation. I am not saying it is the best option but instead of condemning we should be looking for ways that governments in Africa can stop this double suffering. everyday you walk through the country, you hear chilling stories of mentally ill or disabled women raped and they are pregnant. No one will ever come to claim responsibility. Then relatives of these people are left to look after them with a lot of difficulty and many families cannot afford the time or the money to take care of these women. And for those who are on the streets it's even worse. No one cares and  most these children concieved by mentally disabled women die immediately after they are born becuase the mothers cannot care for them that is if the mothers don’t die as they deliver on their own in streets and bushes.

So besides asking Rwanda to drop this proposal I would want to hear what can be done to prevent the unwanted pregnancies among mentally disabled people. This bill should cover areas of protecting such groups not just from pregnancies but also from HIV. How do we ensure mentally disabled people are protected from all this is the key question here but not viewing the proposed law as just abusive.

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This morning at 5:30 am a friend of my brother called him to break the news, MJ has passed. I never believed my brother, him being a joke cracker but I told him this time you’re crossing the line. But then I turned the TV on and there it was on BBC TV. It was really hurting and I wondered why he would of all the times have to go now, when he was to planning a big comeback. So I spread to news to friends who were really shocked. After some hours I came to office and I read news of destruction around the world for example the bombs in Iraq and deaths in Somalia. I had many questions as I tried to look at reactions to MJs death and for those deaths in troubled countries. For MJ many people had gathered at a hospital and around the world we are all sad but for all these other deaths we are unbothered. As I watched the reaction around the world to Jackson’s death I wondered if really all humans can ever be equal. Not that I don’t recognise MJ’s contribution to music and his great talent, I would be naïve to do so, but I wonder why we no longer get the shock when we see death around the world. Everyone seemed to say oh he died young at 50, and then I thought that actually in Uganda life expectancy is at 50. Do you know in many African countries dying of old age is almost history? Do you know that this shock we feel at the loss MJ’s death, many Iraqis face it everyday? The fear for the loss of their own lives and the puzzles of how their children will grow, grips people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am saddened by MJ’s death but I also have unanswered questions on why we don’t react like this when 1000 Palestinians are murdered in less than a month. Let’s face it just like MJ’s life had very deep lows, these people’s lives are entangled in the politics dictated years before they are born and for many it is reasons beyond their control. In such circumstances we will choose MJ’s strengths and good deeds and therefore we will question how this could happened. But for the poor people caught in these conflicts we have many options. We take little or no time to think or be saddened by their situation. If we do think about it we dwell on their weaknesses.

I have been meaning to write something about press freedom in Uganda with the arrest of a radio jounrlaist Patrick Otim on treason charges but am yet to lay my hands on whether his work had something to do with arrest. That's the question many of us journalists in Uganda haven't figured out. Is it true the journalist was involved in subversive activities or did his work have much to do with his arrest. Well it is also still a mystery whether the said new rebel group which Otim allegedly worked, is real or imagined. The Committee to Protect Journalists has an article on a series of court battles that Ugandan journalists are going through.

http://cpj.org/blog/2009/06/in-ugandan-courts-important-press-battles.php

That was a question raised in my story on a new project in Uganda. It was published by The Independent,
http://tinyurl.com/kvr8aa , And was highlighted in the Guardian. The Guardian is running a series of news articles from Uganda on their Katine Project. http://tinyurl.com/nr7y4c