Busoga Integrated Development and Care Foundation

Promoting sustainable healthcare & facilitating development

Widows and Orphans legal aid Project

…Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows.

Widow with her four children There is growing concern that most often when death occurs, those who are supposed to benefit from the estate of the deceased person do not benefit. This is particularly true with regard to children and women on the death of their fathers and husbands respectively. Some of these beneficiaries end up without any recourse and they become destitute. A few who are aware of the Administrator-General’s office and can access it, frequent it for assistance.

Most common complaint of orphans and widows who go to the Administrator-General is that relatives of the deceased have evicted them from the matrimonial home and/or grabbed the deceased’s property and at times the infant children, as well. In the process the orphans, the widows and other people who would have benefited from the estate of the deceased, are dispossessed and become helpless.
Customary law puts a woman in an economically insecure position. She inherits no property despite the fact that she has contributed to it through her unpaid labour in the home. The widow is left at the mercy of her husband’s line and his heir. As a result, women continue to be marginalized as far as property ownership is concerned. Hence, statutory inheritance laws tend to echo the social-cultural norms that promote male supremacy. The life stories that follow the above discussion present the different situations in which married women were denied inheritance rights upon the death of their husbands.
As a result of the traditional inheritance customs, which typically grant the property of deceased male to his close of male relatives, and the inability to maintain property, widows and orphans are often deprived of their inheritance when their husbands and fathers die. Customary law is especially strong in rural areas, and it discriminates women and children in question concerning inheritance and property ownership. Yet, Gender discrimination in inheritance systems has been described as a violation of human rights, and linked to asset stripping, poverty traps and the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

The situation is compounded by the fact that the social and legal systems cannot sufficiently support and protect these widows, widowers and orphans. Whereas it is an offense, intermeddling to taking possession of the property of a deceased person without lawful authority, the public is ignorant about the provision and law generally. The public is more entangled in customs and cultural practices, which uphold intermeddling. Secondly the legal system is not effective in addressing intermeddling because it is so slow and inaccessible in terms of distance for the rural people and the prohibitive high legal fees.

To alleviate the plight of would be beneficiaries of estates especially the widows and orphans; it calls for engaging entire communities and strengthening local capacity as a core component of the project intervention. The change shall be more likely to happen when everyone—grassroots groups, elected leaders, young and old, women and men—are engaged in the process.

Our Key Interventions:

Basic assistance of (immediate interventions and enforcement

Provide free legal and non-legal advice on property and inheritance rights.
Legal aid for orphans and other vulnerable children and their caregivers with legal issues.
Legal redress for widows, orphans and other vulnerable children regarding property and inheritance rights.

2. Training and advocacy.

Training community based paralegals.
Strengthen the capacity of local council I & III courts to handle property and inheritance rights and child related cases.
Information targeted to widows, orphans and other vulnerable groups on domestic violence, abuse, and neglect.
Broad-based awareness campaign on reporting cases of human rights abuse, neglect.
Training for local leaders in child protection issues, rights, and laws.
Awareness-raising regarding ways to reduce stigma and discrimination towards widows and orphans, other vulnerable children, households and persons affected by HIV/AIDS.

3. Community involvement.

Public legal education outreaches in an effort to raise the general level of legal awareness in the community about human rights.
Community meetings to discuss and implement actions to reduce property grabbing, child abuse, neglect, and labour.
Discussions among multi-sectoral community leaders about monitoring and reporting on property grabbing and child protection issues.

Office Address:

P.O.Box 90,

Iganga

Uganda

+256

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