UGANDA: UN WOMEN CITES SYSTEMATIC GAPS IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AS JUSTICE 4-HER IS LAUNCHED IN GULU

“As we launch the ‘Judiciary Time-Share, Fast Track Mechanism for Gender Based Violence (GBV) case project at Gulu High Court today, Thursday March, 20, 2025; we need capacity building of justice actors, judges, Uganda police, and probation officers. This includes further training of legal officers and lawyers to help them sensitize the community in the aspect of GBV.” (UN Women Country Representative).
The UN Women Country Representative says there are still systematic gaps in the justice system in Uganda, as well as a weak legal environment, and enforcement discouraging women from reporting GBV cases.
“When women go to report in different institutions that they became victims of GBV, many of those cases have had challenges of case disposal and slow processing capacity of these institutions.”
Gulu City-Thursday, March 20, 2025
By Okumu Livingstone Langol
Ms. Adekemi Ndieli, the Deputy UN Women Representative to Uganda poured cold water on Uganda Jurisprudence and said GBV remains widespread throughout Uganda. It not only violates the human rights of victims but also severely undermines the nation’s economic and social development capacity.
“The prevalence of physical violence experienced by women and girls in Uganda stands at, wait for it. 51 percent, which is far above the African average of just 37.7 percent,” Ms. Adekemi Ndieli observed.
She adds, according to the Uganda Development Health Survey of 2022, sexual violence remains a critical and pervasive issue, because 70 percent of women, 60 percent of men aged 15 to 49 had experienced sexual violence in 12 months before the issuance of that survey. That is really high, and when you think of it, out of every three women, two must have experienced sexual violence in that period.
Ms. Adekemi observed that is a really high percentage, additionally with the recent published Uganda Police Annual Crimes Report of 2021 to 2024 indicating a steady rise in defilement as well as rape. She noted that those figures are staggering and therefore we can understand why urgent attention is required.
She read the speech of UN Women Country representative Dr. Paulina Chiwangu, who is out of the Country for official duty in Nairobi, Kenya, as summarized below;

Dr. Paulina noted that in spite of all the lengthy procedures in GBV cases handling, there are still systematic gaps in the justice system in Uganda, as well as a weak legal environment and enforcement which has discouraged women from reporting their cases. When women go to report in different institutions they become the ‘accused’ at the end of the day in many cases.
She observed the challenges to case disposal, including slow processes and institutional lack of resources like enough personnel to handle GBV cases. And the fact that we need to establish a system for the prosecutors’ to bring the right witnesses to court to say the right things that will enable fast tracking for the disposal of the cases.
While inordinate delays impact on justice in all cases, this is particularly true in the GBV cases, where on average, a case filed in 2022, take three years, that’s 919 days, to be resolved. That means if a case started in 2022 would not have been concluded today.
Justice delayed is justice denied. Despite all their efforts as UN Women, she is happy to say that there is a silver lining. They take full awareness and are highly appreciative of the efforts that are already in place to dispose of GBV cases.
There is the initiative now under the Judiciary Time-Share, Fast Track Mechanism for Gender Based Violence to have special sessions and daily hearings to reduce case backlogs, generating best practices that others can learn from.
She affirmed UN Women’s continued support to the government of Uganda in the efforts to provide justice 4-her, for all, particularly women and girls.
In her leadership, she had five key action points that morning, the first being a call on all stakeholders present to continue handling GBV cases from a gender-sensitive, survivor-centered, and trauma-informed approach.
Secondly, to continue prioritizing cases of GBV against women and girls, at preventing mitigating and responding to GBV as a life-saving priority.
She gave a story from her home country, Nigeria, where a woman had been complaining about GBV. The woman called the police and also called her parents to report the case of GBV. Both the parents and police, advised her to go back and settle with her husband, as spousal business. And one day, out of nowhere, the husband threw her down the third floor to her death.
If police had taken action, that would not be the case for her death, and if the parents had taken action, probably the death would have been avoided. She observed that if she had removed herself from that situation that would not be her fate. So, this was a case of conspiracy of all actors that ended the life of the poor woman. So that’s why she says the Justice-4 her initiative is a life-saving priority.
Thirdly, continue not only to allocate but also increase funding and human resources to effectively handle GBV cases. Fourthly, enhance data collection initiatives. Whatever is not counted will not count. So accurate data informs effective GBV programming and effectively informs future initiatives. And finally, continue demonstrating ownership and commitment to the project’s success, (Judiciary Time-share, Fast Track Mechanism for GBV project).
She concluded by reminding the audience of an African proverb that says, “One finger cannot pick up a grain.” When you think of that in your head, it really tells us the importance of the collective effort of all actors. It is with collective effort that we can achieve great things. Throughout this process, we have chosen to work together with other actors, particularly in the judiciary, and I want to congratulate you for achieving this milestone.
The Hon. Principal Judge/the Deputy Chief Justice designate, Dr. Flavian Zeija, who was the chief guest while launching the Judiciary Time-share, Fast Track Mechanism for GBV project in Gulu High Court agreed that it was high time for Judiciary officials and stakeholders, the police officials and officials from probation office to be trained how to handle cases on GBV.
According to Justice Phillip Odoki, criminal cases of GBV in Gulu High Court. many cases of GBV in his jurisdiction have not been reported. He further states that victims of GBV must have active programs and accessible justice. If work is to be done, there is need to implement the Judiciary Time-share, Fast Track Mechanism for GBV project, and also witness protection as in the open court has not been provided.
“When I was in one of the trials of GBV, a witness was making a rare presentation, but she was sweating seriously, even if we gave them a fan she was still sweating then I realized that the perpetrator was intimidating her. “ Justice Odoki recalled.
Justice Odoki says there is need to have technologically advanced court secessions where the witnesses would be appearing in a different court room with the guide, while the accused person is in the main courtroom. As it is happening in South Africa, we would have to serve witnesses in this way, because a neighbor would fear to testify against those who have committed crimes for fear of retaliation.