Women engaged in the fishing business in the districts of Mukono, Wakiso and Kalangala have predicted a total breakdown of homes, rooted in vices like starvation, failure to provide education to children, biting poverty and an upsurge in related gender based domestic violence.
The women from the three districts noted that as their counterparts worldwide are celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day for the positive reasons, they are cursing the UPDF Fisheries Protection UNIT (FPU) for actions characterised by confiscation and sale of their fishing gears and fish, extorting money to allegedly let them fish ‘mukene’ and later driving away their workers, and are destined to start living below the poverty line with a single meal a day in their families.
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They are of the view that unless the government steps in to save the already bad situation from getting worse, women are destined to separate from their spouses for each to find means of survival, and leave the children to the husbands to suffer for well-being.
The women who gathered at DAS BALINA HOTEL located at Bulenga in Wakiso district to compare notes on their general hardships in the fishing business and to try to devise means of getting over the impasse created, also blamed political agitators whom they say confuse them by asking illegal fishing communities to go ahead, and later leave them at the mercy of rampaging soldiers who sometimes go as far as flogging culprits.
The women were organised by the management of FIAN Uganda, a non-government organization charged with the promotion of human rights, especially the right to adequate food and nutrition of persons or groups of people threatened by hunger and malnutrition in Uganda.
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Fian Uganda intended to find means of helping the women in fishing business find a solution to the mukene fishing ban coupled with inhuman treatment meted out to them by soldiers of the FPU.
Teopista Komakech of Nangoma landing site in Mpunge sub-county, Mukono district, lamented that much as they strive to confine themselves within use of the ‘goloofa 7’ friendly type of nets, soldiers continue to arrest their fishermen, confiscate their fishing gears and fish, and extort large sums of money to release the boats and fishermen.
Unfortunately, Komakech said that the FPU in most cases process the confiscated fish, sell it and proceeds go to soldiers’ purses.
She said that despite their ignorance about fishing modalities, the soldiers claim the mukene fishermen are not allowed to fish from shallow waters, and that secondly, soldiers do not differentiate between immature tilapia and ‘enkejje’, a small type of fish, and they wrongly intercept fishermen dealing in the latter under the guise of blocking immature fish scooping.
“We can now no longer even pay licence fees to the government and other fishing taxes as the UPDF soldiers take sh300,00o per month from each boat if it is to be allowed on the lake. All this notwithstanding, continue indiscriminately impounding our fishing gadgets and arresting our workers; the end result is abject poverty in the house, lack of food as the children who used to collect remnants dropped after drying mukene have nothing to scavenge on,” Komakech said.
She said FPU operatives have now set their own fishermen on the lake, their own workers to dry the mukene caught with gear confiscated from fishermen, and find their own buyers at the end of the drying.
The women further complained that while well-to-do fishermen are allowed to use the illegal ‘ponyoka’ scooping type of net at a fee of sh50,000, poor women using the less destructive mukene nets are targeted, and they suggested that government starts training them in setting up their own fish ponds so that they leave the lake to the soldiers and wealthy businessmen.
The Co-ordinator for FIAN Uganda, Shafic Kagimu has appealed to the Fisheries Department to give women a go-ahead to get back to mukene fishing because he argued, since the State Minister for Fisheries, Hellen Adoa declared the ban, FPU operatives continue to rape the lake with impunity, while at the same time terrorizing especially women in the fishing community.
He said while the minister’s ban was widely publicised over the media, no similar announcement allowing soldiers to take over the business was ever made, and added that now the battle rages between politicians who wish to retain their votes come 2026, and FPU operatives, with the fishing women acting as the cannon fodder in the circumstances.
“The poor fishing folks are at the centre of the confusion, with politicians telling them they are free from fishing mukene, yet the FPU operatives continue to arrest them and extort money from them on a daily basis.
And Namugga Vaal Benjamin, a member of KATOSI WOMEN DEVELOPMENT TRUST which is charged with protection of women in the fishing business at Katosi landing site in Mukono district, appealed to government to find a way of helping women in the business to add value to their products for fair competition on the fishing market.
Namugga was sad to note that today, women are asked for money to be allowed back on the lake under insecure circumstances, while many landing sites including Bugula landing site, remain closed with no hope of when they will ever be re-opened.
“This has only served to give extortionists the opportunity to fleece the poor women who are becoming poorer and poorer day by day,” she lamented.
Giving a picture of costs reflected in getting into fishing business, Namugga said a legally accepted boat with all accessories costs not less than sh12m, and added that many women get into the business with bank loans; she observed that unless a friendly system of helping them with say adding value to their product, they cannot survive in the market.