Challenging social norms in the drylands of Uganda
In Karamoja, a remote semi-arid region of Uganda where climate change, mining and insecurity threaten communal lands, women carry heavy burdens and have few rights. Civil society and community organisations are starting to develop responses offering hope for change.
Pastoralist women in Karamoja reflect on how insecurity, mining and climate change are affecting their families and their livelihoods (Photo: copyright UCOBAC)
For the women of Karamoja, land is a vital shared resource: they grow food for their families, collect water, gather wild fruit and firewood and graze livestock on communal pastures. But their communal lands are threatened by climate change, industrial mining and armed conflict, while patriarchal social norms override legal protections.
This case study, based on interviews and focus group discussions with local people, illustrates how multiple pressures are reshaping women's lives in Karamoja and how communities are responding.
Karamoja is a remote semi-arid region of high plains in north-eastern Uganda. The region is characterised by vast drylands, seasonal mobility, and a history of marginalisation and neglect. An estimated 74.2% of the population lives in absolute poverty. Within this region, the Karamojong are among the most marginalised communities.
The Karamojong combine cattle herding with small-scale farming, maintaining a delicate ecosystem balance which is especially vulnerable to pressures on land. Access to communal land is the bedrock of their livelihoods, allowing them to move their livestock and find pastures and water in times of scarcity.
While Uganda's 1995 Constitution and the 1998 Land Act formally recognise customary tenure as a legitimate form of landholding, most land remains undocumented and lacks legal protection.
Today, this traditional way of life is increasingly disrupted by commercial pressures. Undocumented, informally-managed land is highly vulnerable to expropriation by commercial interests.
Mining conglomerates are buying land, fracturing traditional access to communal land. By 2021, more than 17,000 square kilometres of land in the region had been licensed for mineral exploration and extraction. In this land rush, concessions are often granted without the free, prior and informed consent of the affected communities, despite legal and international obligations.
What has spoilt the management of land is money. Someone can come and sell someone's land or even buy land. The worst of all is these minerals that people are mining. Mining has brought problems, division – previously, all land was owned by all
– Longora Jhone Ekamaripus, Moroto
Insecurity increases vulnerability
Karamoja's pastoralists traditionally engage in inter-community livestock raiding. However, in recent years, this practice has transformed into a violent, commercialised and militarised activity, with stolen cattle sold for profit.
Armed raiding parties now use automatic weapons. Many families have lost their herds, eroding their primary asset base and increasing economic vulnerability.
Insecurity has become a challenge. People who had gone to that side of Nakabaat to mine the gold, when insecurity started, they came back home. People who have been cultivating far gardens from their home have feared to continue cultivating because of insecurity, especially women. These enemies take girls and women to unknown destinations
– Lorot Rosseta
Women face restrictions on their mobility, gender-based violence, and the threat of abduction. Insecurity limits their ability to cultivate crops, access markets or participate in collective life.
Droughts deepen challenges
While Karamoja has long endured dry spells, droughts are now more frequent and prolonged, pushing the region into near-constant cycles of stress. This unpredictability makes it nearly impossible to plan farming or grazing cycles, particularly for subsistence farmers who lack irrigation and backup resources.
Many families fall into debt, migrate, or resort to unsustainable coping strategies like cutting down trees to make charcoal or leaving to work in the mines.
What I have seen as a challenge is the sun. It dries the crops in the garden, and when you fail, you end up going to mine minerals
– Nakoru Paulina, Natumkaskou village
Again, the burden falls disproportionately on women and girls: they face walking longer distances for water, coping when crops fail and providing for household survival with minimal support.
I had gone to fetch water from the borehole, and as I expected, the lines I found were long. By the time I fetched my water, time had gone and it was late. I had left my sick child at home. On my return, I found out that the malaria had disturbed my child, and he had gotten worse… There was no water to cook food when I had left earlier on, there was no water to even give him some medication
– Focus group attendee, Kachelin village, Rupa
For this case study, UCOBAC conducted focus group discussions with women during which they talked about the challenges of providing for their families (Photo: copyright UCOBAC)
In all of these matters, deeply entrenched gendered inequalities amplify the impacts on women. Although Uganda's Constitution and the 1998 Land Act prohibit gender-based discrimination and encourage women's participation in land governance, the gap between the law and women's reality is stark.
Women have few formal rights and typically access land through husbands or male relatives. If they become separated, divorced or widowed, women often lose access to land altogether, leaving them with no livelihood.
In a context where access to land, food and water is increasingly insecure, women are expected to bear the burden of household survival without any guarantee of the resources needed to do so.
Responses: protecting land rights and building resilience
Civil society organisations such as UCOBAC are developing a range of strategies to protect women in pastoralist communities, including legal empowerment, collective land registration, inclusive governance and efforts to change social norms that perpetuate inequality.
Uganda's legal framework provides legal tools and mechanisms that permit communities to register and manage land held under customary tenure and promote good governance, such as Certificates of Customary Occupancy (CCOs) and Communal Land Associations (CLAs). These mechanisms have the potential to underpin a nascent civil society framework to protect land rights.
Working together to counter dispossession
In Rupa sub-county, three clans merged their CLAs to form the Rupa Community Development Trust (RUCODET), to protect communal land and negotiate with investors.
Registered under national law and governed by a constitution that includes anti-corruption safeguards and women's representation, RUCODET has strengthened local bargaining power. In one case, it secured substantial compensation from Chinese investors seeking to quarry marble.
When you look at structures that support the management of land in our community. We have association called RUCODET, which was formed by the community member to support us in the mineral mining and land. There are people who come from outside there to steal land and minerals. In that very association, we have women involved together with men so that their voices can be heard
– Logiel Assumpta, Acholin village
However, some villagers have raised questions about RUCODET's accountability and benefit-sharing, and although the constitution says one-third of RUCODET's committee members should be women, their actual influence varies.
RUCODET illustrates how community-driven legal structures can protect against unilateral land dispossession and demand fairer terms from investors. But it also highlights the need for new community organisations to have strong governance protections and build in women's participation.
Shifting social norms: successful families and 'positive masculinity'
UCOBAC has a wider aim to shift the social norms that underpin women's exclusion from land governance. It holds community dialogues with men, women and local leaders to discuss land rights, inheritance, registration and women's participation in decision making.
These discussions challenge discriminatory norms and promote the concept of 'successful families' in which men and women jointly register land, formalise marriages and cooperate on land-related matters.
UCOBAC encourages men and women to think together about how women’s access to land and decision making can benefit their families (Photo: copyright UCOBAC)
UCOBAC also champions the concept of 'positive masculinity', encouraging men to challenge restrictive gender roles and support women's access to resources. The positive masculinity concept helps shift perspectives on joint land registration, spousal consent and the value of women's leadership.
Other strategies include using local radio to reach rural communities with information about land rights and working with women farmers to add value to their products and improve their access to markets.
Protecting women's land rights in Karamoja requires a multi-pronged approach: one that links legal tools with social transformation, and community organising with institutional support.
This case study was compiled by IIED and UCOBAC, the Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children's Welfare, an NGO that promotes equitable security of tenure by promoting and protecting the land and property rights of women and girls.
This series of case studies is published in partnership with Rights and Resources Initiative and the International Land Coalition.
