By Patrick Luganda
8 January 2002
Sixty years ago Evelyn Alowo Okoth witnessed a horrendous scene that became permanently imprinted in her mind.
She was 10 years of age when her father brutalised his sister for refusing to marry a man who was ready to pay several cows in bride price.
“My aunt had a boyfriend whom she loved but he was very poor and unable to pay the required bride price. She ran away with him to another village but my father mobilised some people who went and brought her back home,” recalls Okoth.
She is articulate as she reels off the story. “At home she was stripped completely naked and tied spread-eagled in the compound. They brought red ants and placed them all over her body especially in her private parts. She wriggled on the ground in pain and screamed but they just put more ants in her private parts,” narrates Okoth.
Memories of the horrific and dehumanising treatment have refused to fade away.
“Finally my mother could not bear it any more. She ran to my father and slapped him. ‘How can the greed for bride-wealth make you do this to your sister’ my mother shouted at him as she cut the ropes tying my aunt. My mother took her into her hut and nursed her wounds till she was cured,” says Okoth.
The torture did not break her love bond with the poor man. “When her wounds healed she went back to her lover and they decided to run away to Bugerere in Buganda. They settled there and raised a family. She returned to Tororo in 1993 and died the same year,” says Okoth.
What she saw as a small girl prompted her to question why her father would go to the extent of almost killing his younger sister.
“My mother told me that my father had been entrusted with the family affairs after my grandfather died. He was angry that he was not going to get any bride wealth. From that time I hated the whole idea of bride-price.”
Evelyn Alowo Okoth was one of the happiest women when it was declared that a referendum on bride price was to take place in Kirewa, Kisoko, Nagongera sub counties as well as Tororo municipality.
As she grew up she became increasingly convinced that bride wealth should be given to the parents as a gift not as payment for the woman.
“The woman should not be like an item in the market but should get married on the strength of love. That is why we have men beating their wives saying that they are beating the cows which they bought. I am glad that the people are voting on this issue,” she says.
Through various women’s groups Evelyn Okoth called for the change in the bride price. She consistently argued that it caused domestic violence. “Since my youth I’ve been calling for changes in this law. In the YWCA meetings and other club meetings I kept on calling for the changes. I later formed the Nagongera Women’s Guild and we went around sensitising the people in the area that we were not calling for the abolition of bride price but for changes in the way it is handled. We appealed to the men and women to agree to turn the bride price into a non-refundable gift,” says Okoth.
The Mifumi Project united with Nagongera Women’s Guild in the fight to change the bride price. Mifumi got funding from the British government to carry out the referendum exercise.
Originally bride price is refundable to the man should the marriage fail. It did not matter how long the marriage lasted. Even stooping ladies, too old to bear any children and often in the great-grandmothers league, could not just walk out of marriage. Their fathers or next of kin had to pay back the bride price. The Bukedi byelaw of 1964 placed bride price at five cows, five goats and 20 shillings. It made it an offence to ask for more.
A couple of days to Christmas the people went to the polls. The question before the voters was ‘Should bride price become a non-refundable gift? Voter turn up was about 15% of the eligible voters. 8,090 people voted out of 68,000 voters. Over 60% of the voters agreed to make bride price a non-refundable gift. The referendum organisers were excited at the outcome:
” The referendum is significant in the history of Uganda because it is the first time that rural women have lobbied successfully to take a social issue to the ballot. Bride price is an issue that affects mostly poor people particularly women and children,” says Atuki Turner, the Project coordinator.
However not everybody agrees. Men in particular translated the exercise as an attempt to destroy the culture of the Jopadhola.
“Culture is culture, we shall not debate it. We cannot afford to neglect our culture and bride price is about our culture. A man should be ready to pay the cows demanded of him before he gets a wife. It is obvious to us,” says 19 year old Andrew Nywondo at Katandi Magembo polling centre.
Some elderly women interpreted the referendum to mean the abolition of bride price: “How can you take my daughter for nothing. I grew up seeing bride price being paid it should remain,” says Agnes Nyachwo in Kirewa.
Adongo Annunciata Enyoka, 37 is a widow at Kisoko, who advocates for a reform in the bride price structure. “I accept that the amount of bride price should be reduced. I may only be able to afford two cows and this should be given as a gift. Imagine parents with more than five boys will need almost thirty cows to get them wives,” says Enyoka.
The Atha Adhola, Cecilia Owor, wife to the cultural leader, Tieng Adhola says it is good to let people make important decisions. “I think the local people want the bride price through their local cultures. The villagers know what they want. As leaders it would be wrong for us to impose our ideas on them. That would be influencing them. It is good to ask the people.”
Mr. Ewan Ormiston, Second Secretary Political/Press and Public Affairs at the British High Commission who was in Tororo to monitor the voting exercise says that the vote outcome will give the Mifumi Project a better understanding of the bride price issue.
“The commercialisation of bride price here is so rife that a woman cannot be buried unless payment of bride price has been completed. This is very dehumanising,” says Charles Osinde in Tororo municipality.
Atuki Turner says that the outcome of the vote will help them lobby legislators to amend the Bukedi bylaw on bride price as well as change the attitudes of the people towards the practice.
“The referendum is significant in the history of Uganda because it is the first time that rural women have lobbied successfully to take a social issue to the ballot. Bride price is an issue that affects mostly poor people particularly women and children,” says Atuki Turner, the Project coordinator.
However, not everybody agrees. Men in particular translated the exercise as an attempt to destroy the culture of the Jopadhola.
“Culture is culture, we shall not debate it. We cannot afford to neglect our culture and bride price is about our culture. A man should be ready to pay the cows demanded of him before he gets a wife. It is obvious to us,” says Andrew Nywondo, 19, at Katandi Magembo polling centre.
Some elderly women interpreted the referendum to mean the abolition of bride price: “How can you take my daughter for nothing. I grew up seeing bride price being paid it should remain,” says Agnes Nyachwo in Kirewa.
Adongo Annunciata Enyoka, 37 is a widow at Kisoko, who advocates for a reform in the bride price structure. “I accept that the amount of bride price should be reduced. I may only be able to afford two cows and this should be given as a gift. Imagine parents with more than five boys will need almost 30 cows to get them wives,” says Enyoka.
The Atha Adhola, Cecilia Owor, wife to the cultural leader, Tieng Adhola says it is good to let people make important decisions. “I think villagers know what they want. As leaders it would be wrong for us to impose our ideas on them. That would be influencing them. It is good to ask the people.”
Mr. Ewan Ormiston, Second Secretary Political/Press and Public Affairs at the British High Commission who was in Tororo to monitor the voting exercise says that the vote outcome will give the Mifumi Project a better understanding of the bride price issue.
“The commercialisation of bride price here is so rife that a woman cannot be buried unless payment of bride price has been completed. This is very dehumanising,” says Charles Osinde in Tororo municipality.
Atuki Turner says that the outcome of the vote will help them lobby legislators to amend the Bukedi bylaw on bride price as well as change the attitudes of the people towards the practice.