Family Attorney
Uganda: Battered for My Rights
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Nampijja nursing broken arms after her husband battered her over land Nampijja had seen a group of strangers surveying their land, and asked her husband why he was planning to sell off the only piece of land the family was left with Misery is indelibly painted on her face as she stares blankly into the air contemplating her next move. She is sad, desolate and full of agony. She narrates her ordeal sobbing. Besides her lies her mattress - the only property she managed to flee with. This is what happened to 63-year-old Topista Nampijja Nnalongo, a mother of seven. She has only known 37 years of battering, misery and torture in what she calls marriage. But today, she has decided to call it quits and trace her parents’ roots. “I have only lived this long with my husband for the sake of our children. Now that they have grown up, I can afford to divorce,” says Nampijja. She lives at her son’s home in Kisugu, a Kampala suburb. She cheated death narrowly during a domestic brawl with her brutal husband in Kirumba, Masaka district, in February. That fateful day, at 9.00pm after her husband returned from a drinking spree, a fight ensued and both of her hands were broken. The vicious battering was sparked off by Nampijja demanding to know why he was planning to sell off the only remaining piece of the family land. “Previously he had sold two plots without my consent. The 1997 Land Act provides for spouses not to sell land on which the family derives a livelihood without the consent of one’s partner. Nampijja had seen a group of strangers surveying their land during the day and decided enough was enough. She knew if her husband was to sell off the plot, the family would remain with only the compound of their house. “I was baffled when I saw him rush out of the house only to return with a huge coffee stick,” she narrates. “He started hitting me mercilessly, while demanding to know where I got the audacity to ask him questions regarding his land.” Despite her efforts to raise an alarm, nobody came to Nampijja’s rescue. She painfully struggled to walk to her brother’s home, in the neighbourhood, after fruitlessly knocking at the door of the LC1 chairman. Her brother rushed her to Masaka Hospital where she was admitted for one week. With the help of her brother, Nampijja had her husband arrested and detained at the police station, but he was later released on police bond after the LC1 chairman, a relative of his, stood surety. Nampijja was transferred to Mulago Hospital, where she spent one night before running away to seek local treatment. “I saw children with fractured limbs crying in agony at Mulago. I feared that if I stayed longer, the doctors would chop off my hands,” she narrates. She sustained two fractures on her left hand and one on her right. But the local medicine man from Kisugu has been able to mend both hands by holding them with bandages. The cost for the treatment is sh400,000, each hand being treated for sh200,000. She has paid a deposit of sh100,000, leaving her with a balance of sh300,000. Her dilemma now is where to get this money. Nampijja laments: “I do not derive any pleasure from throwing the man into prison. All I want is him to pay the medical bills. I want the Government to provide me with security over our land so that my husband does not sell it. I know he cannot succeed in selling it now because the would-be buyers are scared after this incident.” Nampijja married Kabobi Ssalongo, a painter, in 1970 when she was 24 years old. She recalls toiling to educate her children by selling enguli (a local spirit), which she brewed and distilled herself. From just one small plot at the time she married, Nampijja says with her support, Ssalongo bought two more plots from which the family has been deriving a livelihood More : allafrica.com |
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