A woman waiting in a line at Mitandi health center, a faith based center.

Uganda has one of the highest maternal mortalities in the world. At 435 mothers per 100,000 live births that translates to 16 mothers a day.
Over the years the Uganda’s political leadership have found a scapegoat in health workers blaming them for the poor healthcare delivery system despite wide research on what many see as a crumbling health system.

On the trip was President Barack Obama’s top official in charge of health at the State Department, Lois Quam who heads the Global Health Initiative (GHI).
GHI was brought in when President Obama assumed office to ensure a coordinated foreign health support.

The US government has concentrated on maternal health in these districts that have some infrastructure to gauge what difference their interventions can bring.
The programmes are on voluntary family planning, skilled care at birth as well as emergency obstetric and postpartum care. The American government provide over $400 million annually in health assistance to Uganda.

I met great doctors and health workers who work with so little to save lives. Their stories I will run in the next few days.

I was able to talk to Christopher Dorval, Senior Advisor; Strategy and External Relations at the Global Health Initiative. He says to make a big reduction in numbers of women dying due pregnancy complications, Uganda leaders must show political will.

QN: Explain briefly what work GHI does?

Mr Dorval: President Obama started the global health initiative and what he wanted to do was to take all investments that the US has made with partners around the world and try to bring much greater focus on the countries to assume more and more of their health care burden.
We want to work with countries like Uganda to begin to take control of their own healthcare. Instead of the US coming and trying to supply HIV/AIDS drugs but the question was how do we work together so that Ugandans own the system and ultimately it to benefit people of Uganda. We are trying to move away from disease specific investment where you go look at TB, Malaria,
It is great and we will continue the support but we want to treat as a person as a whole. If it’s a woman, we want to make sure they get family planning, malaria, immunization, and maternal assistance if they are pregnant. We want the countries to have health systems not just one disease based solutions.
Everybody needs to benefit from that health system and that’s what the GHI is all about.

(President Bush was famous for funds he availed for HIV but the focus on HIV moved attention to leading killer conditions in Uganda)

QN: How do you gauge Uganda’s healthcare system and response to maternal health?

We think the government needs to do more, we are not satisfied that government is doing enough, we think the people want and demand greater maternal services so we are trying to look at very specific interventions that no one else has done. It is simple interventions but they crucial that if you don’t do them a woman is going to die.
And what we have seen in Kabarole and Kyenjojo is the difference between the woman who lives and the one who dies are simple things like transportation, blood supply, a well qualified health assistant and ability to refer them in an emergency facilities. These are things that should be done and can be done.
Every single maternal death and infant death is preventable and we are saying we have to solve that and if you tackle that you will improve society greatly.
If we don’t solve it how is the country going to be strong when their women are in villages and can’t deliver safely, what does it say about a society and the country? A country that’s leaving behind women and they are not being able to contribute to their country.

QN: How sustainable are your interventions?

Most of the things we are talking about are less about money. They are more about simple interventions, there are plenty of Boda Boda (motor bikes) drivers and some people who are unemployed could learn how to design and make little ambulances to carry women. Everybody has a cell phone even in remote areas. They could call in advance and ask for a Boda Boda or ambulance whatever it takes. We need to build up simple systems and simple interventions that mean the difference between life and death.
They are sustainable in large part because they are simple. The challenge is in the villages and government has to have the political will to say we are sick and tired of seeing women and die and we are going to change it. It is not that difficult but shame on us if we can’t make it. It doesn’t cost a lot.

Note: The US government has funded a voucher system through different partners where women pay as little as 3000 Shillings (1.5 USD) to access antenatal, delivery and attendance for any complications. In various centers where I visited they reported a huge increase in mothers coming to deliver in health centers with this system. Also some money is paid to the Village health teams (VHTs) who provide health education, follow up mothers to take up antenatal as well as delivery. Again this has had positive results in the numbers of women delivering as health facility as well as increase the impact of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in some cases from as high as 15 percent to 2 percent in just one year.
I will be writing more detailed reports of challenges and experiences of health workers even when such interventions are in place.

It wasn’t long we were moving through the garbage, heaps of polythene bags, flowing sewage besides little wooden houses which most people sleep in. We were with a young man that runs a program for kids in that neighborhood and that’s why it was easy to move around.

Kisenyi photo by Ssozi Javie

Andy and Ed Echwalu were ready with cameras. You can’t shoot without getting the toughest kids on the block to guard you here. Before the shoot, a crowd of kids gathered, it was quite touching to see a child beg you to buy them sugarcane for 100 shillings for lunch. We were there around 1pm, most of these kids don’t easily find a meal.  There are all sorts of businesses going on but survival business like selling empty water bottles. More than three quarters of the kids and youth here were intoxicated with all sorts of substances. There were a few women who came to the shooting site. There were lots of young girls too.

I spoke to Angel Nantale, barely five years; she goes to Nakivubo blue Primary school. She told me her mother is a bar tender, her two elder sisters stopped in primary four. The two sell tea in Kisenyi. As we chat, Nantale tells me she wants to be a doctor to the laughs and disbelief of the some boys who were eavesdropping on our conversation.

But Nantale doesn’t even turn to them. I ask her why she specifically wanted to be a doctor and the reply “when my mum is sick I can look after her very well.”Our conversation was in Luganda and English. She says she pays about 70,000 shillings (about 30 USD) but she has a hard time. Sometimes she is chased from school because of late school fees payment especially before exams. I took sometime to tell her that she will be a doctor if she puts her heart to it, she smiles and I am called for the next kid to interview. Nantale and I we part ways.

Nantale

Most children here lived with their relatives, some ran away from homes. I had never seen such a scene, a group of 30+ children high on different drugs. I wondered how this can be the same city we live in and what was government doing. I spoke to another woman 29 years old, HIV positive and couldn’t afford drugs. She said she had left her home in Rukungiri at 18 after the death of her mother. She came in search of a job in the city.

Then there was Madina, I called her pretty Madina because she has such gorgeous eyes. She’s barely 5 also and she was carrying two three-litre jerry canes to go fetch water. Not knowing how to approach this child labour question, I ask her whether she had siblings. She tells me she has many. I ask why they aren’t fetching the water, she says they were somewhere playing and her mother needed water. We talked and she said the water wasn’t that heavy, and that she was ok, she could bring the six litres at once.

Madina.

Watching this whole environment I wondered what it means to grow up from here as a girl child.  I wondered, would she survive sexual violence in such a drug filled environment? How long did she have before her dreams of school die? Madina told me she had gone to  a school once but she was out because she did not have a uniform. Just a uniform stands in the way of her education.

I wondered why would our government boast of a universal primary education if it doesn’t tailor in special needs of kids from tough places like Kisenyi. And what have our local government done in terms of catering for the urban poor especially children. How can a place like this never ever feature in our news? How can hundreds of families never be mentioned much?

And in the end I asked what could I possibly do about this? Some of the youth- the boys wanted money from us. They said the same charges we hear put on  “foreigners coming to Africa to take pictures of us and make money from out of our misery.” They didn’t have to say it, I had already started wondering how can I help beyond just being part of a photo shoot organized via twitter which these kids might never hear of?

What can I do to see that Madina, Nantale and others have an education and not simply be part of this cycle of poverty and hopelessness?

A photo of me taken by Ssozi Javie. reminded us of the photo of a man with an iPad covering somalia famine.

Check #KisenyiPhotoShoot on Twitter.

In the end, Police Constable Santos Komakech Makmot killed one man and injured four more people. Yet to many the situation is not new, Ugandans have seen the privatization of security in the country lead to paramilitary groups that the police is pleased to use against opposition rallies.  The goons that KCCA hires to be in charge have no businesses in enforcing laws.

Going by the comments this video generated one can understand the state in which Ugandans are in being led into by those who came to power by the barrel of the gun.

The area LCI chair at Port Bell where this tragedy happened, pleaded with one fraud-turned into a city planning director George Ninsiima Agaba.  The oldman’s pleas fell on deaf ears and a life was lost.  Uganda police says they will put murder charges against Santos and Agaba who are still in custody but for a man installed by president Museveni we can hope this time impunity will not win.

In the years we have seen increased militarism, groups of hooligans take over especially in protests and humiliate Ugandans who are seeking for respect of their right to assembly. Police head Lt. Gen. Kayihura went to the demolition scene only to deny responsibility. How can a city demolition go on without his knowledge? If it did happen, it is telling about his police. How can he distance himself when the killer was a policeman?  I hope Kayihura soon realizes that one day he might not have the space to accept responsibility, that people will one day get really really tired and he will wish he had been more sensitive to an ordinary man.

How can you give just a month to a poor trader to get another place? And is it outrageous for them to ask for more time or more lenience? Of all the reactions, Richard Kavuma captured best the emotions of the people and what it means for us.

Are the wishes of Ugandans so outrageous?

Is it outrageous to want to live in peace?

Is it outrageous to crave confidence in the future?

Is it outrageous to cherish freedom from terror?

Is it so outrageous for a leader to speak up for the led?

Is it outrageous for that cobbler to mend shoes?

Is it so outrageous for him to succeed,

If to succeed means to survive?

Is it outrageous for Hadija to conclude,

that Uganda has not gone to the dogs,

But the dogs came to Uganda?

He faces four charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and rape. Throughout the conflict I had kept in close touch with friends in the country and their distress was beyond what I could imagine. Everyday Africa was treated to the drama of two people claiming to have won an election. Many thought Ivory Coast could head in the direction of Kenya and Zimbabwe, where compromise had to be reached because Africa’s old men didn’t wish to leave.

Coming from Uganda where we have never had a free and fair election in my adult life, the circus was very familiar. The influence that a sitting president has on those announcing the results is enormous. In 2008 I had watched, with my jaw dropping, as the president of Kenya made a mockery of the bible swearing as the legitimate leader. His sticking to power and the subsequent violence had taken lives of about 1200 Kenyans while many took refuge in my country Uganda.  In Kenya too, the ICC had come and it was a few months before that we had watched the prosecutor submit his case to Pre-Trial Chamber seeking to bring the 6 men of Kenya to trial. The ruling on whether they will be tried or not is due next week.

On December 05 2011, when I had gone to the ICC to attend the first appearance of Gbagbo as part of my trainging with the Asser Institute and RNTC. It was out of luck that my training in international justice took place at the same time as Gbagbo was appearing.  I watched the proceedings from the public gallery.

The photo of Gbagbo I had last seen was when he was captured by what he told would that day tell court were French troops. It was almost unbelievable to watch a man that months earlier had appeared on television with his authoritative speeches and lack of compromise even to the barking African Union. Seeing him standing with a guard next to him was what some Ivorians wanted and what many in countries in Africa with dictators would love to see. It may not be the ICC but the trail of a powerful man that never listens or respect his people.

There was a section of Ivorians in gallery, at first it was difficult to tell which side they were on but as the Judge announced a date for Gbagbo’s next appearance 18 June 2012, his supporters rose up and sang the Ivorian national anthem.

Gbagbo looked up and with a half smile and waved to them. The 66-year-old former president, his supporters yelled was not the person to be standing trail.  Later this year in June, the court will decide if will stand trial or not. This was a historic event, for 25 minutes I watched international justice take another step. Whether to right direction or not depends on which prism one is viewing it. Of course many call this victor’s justice and that Alassane Outtara should also be answerable yet in that court I saw a man who could have saved his nation from destruction and ethnic hatred. I saw one of the old men from my continent that stubbornly refuse to accept that they are not the nation.

Four days later, an hour and half flight, I was out of The Hague to Oslo to witness another milestone this time on positive note. On Saturday 10, December, the world turned to Oslo as three great women received a Nobel Peace Prize. I had interviewed President Elen Johnson Sirleaf twice, had met inspirational Leymah Gbowee in 2010 at the ManUp summit on violence against women that took place alongside the World Cup in South Africa. Though I have some great Yemeni friends – activists- I had somehow missed the great courage of Tawakkol Karman.

Leymah Gbowee and I before she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

Although Sirleaf’s prize had come with controversy, it is not the first one. She may have her faults in her struggle bring a country from almost nothing but I have always found her such an intelligent grandma president.  In a country torn by civil wars, it is always difficult to find anyone clean even if we were to go by the claims of those who opposed the prize. She used her experience and last positions to elevate Liberia. She represents what the rest of Africa will take time to get- a female president well respected for what she can bring to the table.

Leymah’s story is well documented in Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which makes me cry every time I try to re-watch it. So I only watched it once. On that day, I posted that “Today, it feels good to be African.”  Four days ago, I had watched Gbagbo and his supporters claim his arrest is totally unfair, trivializing the death of hundreds. In Oslo,  I was in a bus with Julius Mucungunzi, a Ugandan journalist I respect a lot , a bus full of proud Liberian women. Many Africans residing in Scandinavian countries came over to catch this historic moment.

At Grand Hotel where the Laureates stayed was jammed but nothing like fussy security.  I took a moment to congratulate Leymah and took a photo.  At the ceremony when I was asked whose speech I thought had been best, I couldn’t choose.  How could I choose from President Sirleaf’s calmness and tribute on the people of African descent that have Nobel prizes before and talk of where she wants to take her nation, Leymah’s unwavering passion for the role of African women in security and Tawakkol’s energy fresh from the Arab Spring and deposing a dictator. That was history there, recognizing women in an area where many are quick to portray women’s victimhood and not celebrate their resilience. That was epic moment of the year 2011 for me.

Photo by Esther Eshiet

The protest against President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to remove fuel subsidies has united many who say this will suddenly more than double the cost of living for most Nigerians. This year the Ugandan government has promised to start work on an oil refinery and the sector is already hit with corruption and bribery allegations. At the heart of the subsidies debate in Nigeria is why hasn’t government invested in refineries instead of selling crude oil and import fuel at a much higher price. I asked two Nigerian friends, both are taking part in today’s protests, about the issue because Uganda government has to learn from African countries like Nigeria that have been producing oil for five decades. Here is the two responses.

EE:

Hmmm its a bit difficult to explain the current issues on fuel subsidies in Nigeria. So I tell you a little story.
In the 1970s Nigeria discovered crude oil so we built refineries to refine this crue oil and sell to local consumers. Of course Nigeria sold some of the crude oil for foreign exchange. It was so good that the then Military ruller said Nigeria had so much money and did not know what to do with it.

Fast forward into the 1990s. Due to curruption and incessant millitary intervention in Government, all refinaries in Nigeria have stoped working and so the Government now has to use marketers to import refined petroleum for local consumption and of course the cost of the imported fuel is higher than that which was on sale when the refinaries were working. So government had to subsidise the cost importation by local dealers who are now porpularly known as the cabal.

So now in the 2012s the government says it can no longer subsidise the petrol. There is an increase in consumption of petrol thus demanding an increase in the amount the government spends on subsidy, the funds for the subsidy do not have the desired effect because some of the cabal just buy the fuel at subsidised rate and go accross the border and sell the petrol at the full price. The government also tells us that the process of disbursement of the funds for the subsidy is enbroiled in fraud and curruption involving the marketers which the government says it cannot check. So we have to pay for government’s inability to check corruption.

So the subsidy is removed. And now the argument comes down to figures.  The government argues that the removal of subsidy will provide additional funds amounting to about 6 Billion USD annually for development. The people argue that these funds will simply go into the pockets of corrupt government officials.

The government argue that they will use thi money to rebuild the refinaries and eventually the cost of petrol will go down. The people say do that first before you remove the subsidy. The consequencies of the removlal of subsidies is that the cost of leaving increases by more than 100%. road is the major form of transporting goods and services. Aviation transportation goes high and everything spirals out of control.Unfortunately the government is not listening they make the common man pay for their corruption. That is why we are going on a strike come monday.

They are both on the street to challenge what they say is a government not willing to listen to or consult its people before taking decisions that affect their lives. Also it is about time Nigerians stoop up to the deep rooted government corruption.

Esther said:

The main reason why Nigerians are protesting against Government’s removal of fuel subsidy is because of the rat race approach at which this is being carried out. And for me the argument is simple!

Formerly the pump price of fuel was N65 per litre, now it been moved to N141 that’s a 120% increase- overnight!.   The 2011 budget has subsidy allocated in the budget already, and that budget was extended to cover implementation till 31st, March 2012.Therefore it is illegal for the government to take off the subsidy when the budgetary provision covering it is still valid till march 2012.

The Fuel subsidy debate has been on for the past 3 months, there has been town halls organized by the media, but not one single consultation with Nigerians in their heterogeneous groups either at national, state of local government levels  to get the community to buy-in the subsidy removal policy.

It was a shame that one week after the policy has been implemented our Minister for Labour , Mr Emeka Nwogu said on National TV…”Nigerians are busy protesting not knowing that the next stage of the Subsidy removal, government wants to implement is the consultation on the implementation stage of the policy…” For me this is CRAP!!! How can you do consultations after you’ve already began implementation! Not fulfilling the globally accepted stages of policy formulation!- it is simply the case of placing the cart before the horse!

The most serious of argument is the IMMENSE CORRUPTION that goes on in the NNPC- Nigeria’s National Petroleum Company, we have 4 refineries, but none is working so we import fuel after exporting crude. The NNPC doesn’t have storage facilities to store the fuel so it take it to companies with such facilities, they are given for e.g 500 barrels of oil, the NNPC pays them a daily fee for  the facility use and when the NNPC comes back for the oil, its just 300 barrel that is found etc. So the corruption is deep rooted! And the President is turning a blind eye to it! He is now saying Nigerians should pay twice the price of oil as if this is what is going to fix the structural and institutional crises crippling the petroleum sector!

#OccupyNigeria might have been triggered off by the fuel subsidies by this represents a long road to tackling corruption in government in Africa where we have a lot of times too large a public service budget when citizens who hustle daily and pay taxes get nothing out of it.

Atwan in Amsterdam on Dec 16. Rosebell's photo

Atwan is editor-in chief of the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. He discussed the Arab spring and the future of the Middle East and North Africa beyond the ‘revolution’.

Some of my favorite quotes from the meeting:

“We Arab people were suffered double humiliation. That brought about by imperialism and another by own very own corrupt government.”

I found this quote very meaningful for not only the Arab world but also of Africa. All year long many people have been watching closely to see if there will be a sort of African spring. And every time some friends asked me when is the African Spring, I replied, we won’t have a spring, ours will be the African Harmattan! None the less there has been inspiration from the north of the continent spreading south. In many ways our realities are close to those of the MENA countries and we can only wait and see what changes and how long will they take on the African continent. Just like Atwan said “whoever knew or predicted that the Arab people would depose four dictators in just one year?”

I have very passionate Yemeni friends and Atwan said he respected the struggle of Yemen, knowing how many guns are in the hands of so many people that the country has not moved to a civil war. He applauded the choice of non-violence of the people of Yemen even when they had access to arms. And he told us a famous saying about the difficulty of ruling Yemen with its tribes system that i loved.

“Riding a lion is smoother than ruling Yemen”

Then came Atwan’s passionate talk on the events in Libya and how he disagreed with the NATO military intervention. Even though he was glad that the killing of Muammar Gaddafi has been called a crime against humanity, he decried the west for allowing impunity of rebels turned government of NTC.

I was interested in the fact the the ICC had backed off the Libya case and of recent the prosecutor had indicated that Libya’s new rulers were capable of prosecuting Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Personally i found this ridiculous, how could the killers of his father offer him a fair trial in a country has no justice system. Having spent the earlier week hearing people decry the ICC being an African court, here i was with a situation which clearly an outside court could have done better.

When I asked Atwan about this he went beyond the case of Saif to talk about his recent trip to Tripoli and how many African countries and the were silent about crimes being committed about African people, both Libyans and immigrants.

There are at least 7000 black people in Libya being tortured and living in the most inhumane conditions all these atrocities being presided over by the new regime.Yet we see no human rights papers about them. Nothing from western governments who supposed intervened on human rights grounds. I will not be surprised if we soon hear that Saif has been executed. The West is keeping a blind eye to crimes committed by rebels because of they always put their interests above anything else.

And that was from a Palestinian man who lived in as a refugee in Jordan, managed to study in Egypt and later run one of the most respected Arab media outlets from London since 1989.

Atwan said for the future of the entire region, one must not put their eyes off Egypt. He said is Egypt becomes more islamist, chances are that most of the other countries will follow suit.

Photo by Edward Echwalu.

I am in Brussels where two days ago Congolese community had clashes with Police when they went out to demonstrate agains the president Joseph Kabila’s ‘re-election’ which has so far been rejected by international election observers and leading opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi.

The Carter Center said “we find the irregularities are significant enough to undermine the credibility of the election results.”

Again the contention is on the tallying process. Earlier the opposition had warned that the Electoral body had chosen to announce first results from Kabila’s strongholds in Katanga, a move seen by many as way to psychologically prepare the population if Kabila is finally announced as a winner. But Once again we have a Cote d’Iviore situation, both men have announced themselves as winners of the election. There are reports of government moving troops into Kinshasa and rounding up youth linked to the opposition. The situation is unpredictable and no one seems to know how this stalemate will be solved. And as tensions flare I am reminded of women of DRC, eastern DRC in particular who have endured all sorts of inhumane acts by soldiers and militias. On this day they see the little hope of having a government that can bring peace wane.

And I bring a story of Ester Munyerenkana a health worker at Panzi. I have held onto this story for quite a while. Her and other health workers daily have to deal with the end result of the broken political system and violence in Congo .

They all hope they can see a function government that can protect it’s citizens from this violence but as the two figures clash, like we say when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. I hope Congo is not left to descend into further chaos.

Ester’s Story 

Ester Munyerenkana could be rightly called one of the world’s most hard working health workers. A mother of four, together with many other women hustles daily to bring back life to sexually violated women at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The hospital, which offers medical and pyscho-social care to women from as far as Katanga region, receives at least 10 women a day after brutal sexual violations has been meted on them in the various conflicts that have plunged Eastern DRC since the ousting President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997.

In 2009, more than 5,000 women were raped in South Kivu alone according to the UN figures.  The majority of the rapes are committed by soldiers or armed rebels but recent studies have showed an increased in raped committed by civilians.

Oxfam and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) in April 2010 carried out as study from interviews of 4,311 female survivors of rape treated at the Survivors of Sexual Violence department at Panzi Hospital and fund an increase in number of civilian rapes among the patients treated. The number of reported civilian rapes among patients admitted to the SSV-project in 2008 was 11 per cent and in 2009 it increased to 15 per cent. From July 2009 to June 2010 the figure had further increased to 18 per cent.

This is the department where Ester works. She explains her bravery amidst the daily distress to being raised by a single mother. Ester’s father passed away just when she had started nursery school and her eldest sibling was just 12 years old. She says her mother pushed to look out for community service.  “It was the upbringing in a Christian family where love was central. My mother emphasized passion to others as she struggled to take us through school,.”

Ester got her Midwifery in 1976 in Bukavu DRC and after which worked at different centres. Now at Panzi Hospital, she is better known as Cherie Mama for her welcoming smile.

“Since the war began in the late 1990s I have been working with women who are in the most painful situations, physically and psychologically,” explains Ester, “but in 2004 I decided to take up a social work course.

She says it was because of her desire to be more than a midwife. After her course, Ester asked the hospital management to be transferred to the Survivors of Sexual Violence (SSV) department.

“I wanted to work with the worst cases, I was not satisfied just doing only deliveries. I thought it is best to go to those with no happiness and I will bring happiness to them,” she said.

At the time Panzi Hospital would get more than 400 rape victims per months some of the survivors of gang rapes come from as far as 100-600 miles from the hospital.

“Most victims of rape when they arrived at Panzi hospital they soiled, dirty, torn clothes and in despair, the first thing I and other workers do is to bring back their dignity by providing the basics such as basin, soap, lotion and help them take a bath if they are unable,” she narrated.

While a woman takes a birth, Ester is busy give her “encouraging words” before a meal is offered. Ester emphasizes that it is important to love this work because the patients will take long to feel secure and loved.

She narrated the nature of violent attack on the survivors. Speaking passionately in Swahili Ester tells gruesome levels of violent that are beyond one’s comprehension.

“These militias use many methods to rape women, it includes pushing bayonets or logs into the woman’s vagina, some drop burning hot plastic liquids into the vagina and even more heartbreaking is looking at girls as young as 7 years raped this way.”

After meals survivors are taken for medical tests and she estimates that out of 100 screened survivors for various infections about 10 are found to be have HIV/AIDS.

Ester’s routine

Ester arrives at Panzi hospital at 7:00 am and leaves at 4:00 pm.  First task for her is to prepare the women survivors for the prayers. These prayers are an important part of counseling but also for detection of recovery of the women. After prayers the sexual violence survivors then return to their wards and go through different therapy using confidence building activities, health exercise, talks about hygiene and nutrition.

I attended the exercise session where Ester and other social workers bring up songs and rhymes about different societal issues in a satirical way. It is in moments like these that they take note which patient is fully recovered those that are not.

“As we go through the various exercises for about 30 minutes, I track those who are not active and follows them up in individual sessions to get the underlying cause for their inaction.”

Most women with most stigma are those who have had children from the rapes or those who raped by close relatives. They are afraid of returning to the society not only because of the rapes but also the fear that they and their children will not be accepted. Others cannot easily accept their own children.

Everyday hundreds of Panzi hospital staff like Ester work with the survivors of violence and giving hope back to such women is one of the toughest jobs. Ester tells of one of the stories that have touched her most, a story of a raped child mother who was suicidal.

“It was during the counseling session, 12 year old girl told me she had been raped got and a child as a result.  When the child was about 6 months, life was very difficult for,” Ester narrates. “ It was a baby boy and she walked to the lake to throw him in. And she told me that suddenly the baby looked at her face and smiled, then she stopped and wondered what he was telling her. She tried three times to drown the baby but wouldn’t and then she decide to come to Panzi.

The 12 year-old girl told Ester that she didn’t like “the child” because it was from the Interahamwe and in future he would want answers about his father. After days of counseling with Ester, the girl began to see the child as her own not just from the Interahamwe.

Interahamwe is a Rwandan paramilitary group that has been operating in DRC since the end of the Rwanda genocide in 1994. More than 5 million people are estimated to have been killed in DRC from 1997 and 2008 both directly in fighting and others due to diseases.

It is after listening to such stories that the psychologist takes over from Ester. Ester and other social workers are the first line of hope for many women who come to Panzi and they stay with them for months.

Ester’s joy.

You see a glitter in Ester’s eyes as she tells the story of restoring hope and having these women accepted back in the community. She tells of her followup trips of four women from a village whom she had looked after for many months. After a year of leaving Panzi, they were still supporting each other and involved in agriculture and sustaining their families.

She tells of another woman whose husband had rejected her because he insisted she had HIV. In this case Ester brought the man back with her to Panzi where the two could get tests and after they came out negative the man accepted the woman.

Often the husbands refuse the women and many of the survivors lose property rights on top of suffering to raise their children they came back with.

All over Eastern DRC, the challenge for survivors of sexual violence remains access to primary as well as secondary health care, which is due to displacement, political insecurity and lack of capacity within the health centres. And it is difficult for many to feel safe in the very communities where they experienced the violence. Living in their homes without an assurance that this will never happen again is the most difficult time, Ester says. And this is because the conflicts are still going on with no end in sight.

I spoke to Ester during a trip supported by Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE) and the Stephen Lewis Foundation program – African Institute for Integrated Responses to Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS. The program is aimed at creating a network of African-based, women centered technical support on issues of violence against women, HIV/AIDS and counseling.

Dr. Dennis Mukwege, the Director of Panzi hospital said the hope women who are sexually violated lies in finding a lasting political solution that would eliminate the current environment that makes it easy to target women.

And the Congo presidential election is refuted , now more than ever survivors of sexual violence in Easter DRC need to see action from African Union and international community to ensure there’s no escalation in violence.

Here is Sarah’s story.

They think what they are actually here to do is secure for their country Uganda’s newly found oil.

a photo i took on Wednesday morning at Entebbe International Airport.

The mistrust and suspicion of American military interventions is well understood considering its record world over. However, I found many who are opposed to this deployment lacking much knowledge on what havoc the LRA have inflicted on the peoples of the three countries whom governments have largely ignored. And also many don’t look at what alternatives are there to stop these brutal massacres .

Aid agencies, which are very few in North Eastern DRC because of insecurity,  a few months ago indicated that in 2010 LRA carried out about 306 attacks in the three countries  resulting in 355 deaths. 214 of these were in the DRC and 68 in the CAR.

LRA carried out 680 abductions in 2010, most of them happening in CAR.

In 2010, 381,000 remained displaced in LRA areas, 77% in DRC, 12%
in South Sudan and 11% in CAR.  There were 20,000 Congolese refugees in South Sudan, 3,500 in CAR and 1,500 CAR refugees in DRC.

The first quarter of 2011 saw a significant increase in the number of LRA incidents compared to the 2010. It represented a 37 percent increase in DRC.

The UPDF has been for years deployed in CAR and DRC in agreement with both governments to help track the LRA rebels without much success except for a few defections. In fact, late last year the two governments of DRC and CAR were frustrated that the UPDF was receiving loads of money from foreign governments  but little was being registered in ending  LRA rebellion.

The CAR government in December 2010 had asked the UPDF to leave but they are still present in one area. A friend who works in CAR once told me that when they were asking CAR civilians which militia groups are involved in the conflict, some wrote UPDF. This is because the ordinary people on the ground just see people in UPDF uniforms and have no clue who they are and what they are there to do.

The DRC government asked UPDF to leave, at first by May this year but later asked for a calendar showing their withdrawal. I have not heard of the details of this withdraw plan. In some incidents the Congolese Army, which has its own structural problems had clashes with UPDF in DRC which were largely unreported in the media.

The media has for the last two years not covered much this conflict and few NGOs operate in that part of DRC that one aid worker told me that over 10,000 IDPs had been without any humanitarian aid for months because no one wants to dare the Orientale Province because LRA attacks are very incessant and unpredictable.

So the failure to end the LRA conflict in DRC cannot only be allocated to UPDF alone. The conditions in which the LRA is operating are not that simple. One UPDF soldier who has been based in CAR told me early this year that fighting LRA was very difficult because “you have to do surveillance on a jungle bigger than the size of Uganda.”

The case of DRC, the Orientale Province is one of the many lawless parts of eastern DRC where the central government doesn’t have much control. The crimes the UPDF committed in DRC between 1997 and 2003 have not helped as there is always suspicion and mistrust as to whether Uganda can seriously put an end to activities of a rebel group they export to its neighbours.

There was an AU regional meeting for defence ministers held between CAR, DRC, Sudan, Uganda, the Government of South Sudan at the time in Bangui in October 2010 but we didn’t get much out of it. The presence of MONUSCO (UN peacekeeping mission) has not helped and most of the time they have been reluctant to venture into LRA affected areas because of an incident in 2006 where Guatemalan Special Forces were deployed to the bush to go after the LRA and 6 were killed.

A researcher in one of the few agencies that still work in Dungu told me that because of the wide area of operation of LRA we must recognize that “military intelligence is more important that military power. Aerial surveillance and ‘human’ intelligence is crucial” if LRA is to be dealt with. And as far we have seen over the years all the four government involved in the fight for LRA have not shown us they are capable of doing the needed surveillance work.

So the question is will this US deployment deliver?

Of course this deployment cannot be seen as a mere charity work on part of the Americans. In early 2009 the US government was involved in a botched attack on Joseph Kony’s base in Garamba in an attempt to kill the rebel leader

Kony, as it has been for the last 25 years, we were told had left the base few hours before the strikes. Ugandans were later shown images of the First son Col. Muhoozi Kainerugaba and other special forces posing at the Kony’s former base. Nothing much came out of this attack and it was a military failure. The Operation Lightning Thunder as it was called only managed to scatter LRA to other civilian areas with operating with more brutal tactics.

Uganda is more worried about LRA making a comeback through western Uganda but the group is currently scattered that it cannot easily unite and also it would have to make alliances with various Congolese militias. Most of those who defected over the last year reportedly said they haven’t been in contact with Kony in over a year.

What can 100 combat troops do? Will they deliver several other botched attacks or will they help end the conflict? Well at the end of the day, regional governments must be more willing and give LRA more attention than they have done in the last three years. DRC, South Sudan and CAR must work faster to pacify the lawless regions that have made it easy for LRA to operate for this long. Also the past has shown that focusing only on military intervention will not easily bring back rebels who were forced to carry out all these crimes in the first place.

Those who worry about foreign intervention must equally worry about the deaths and human rights violations that millions of people in the three countries face daily.

The worry is not that the Americans are here -because they have been here for some time. The question is, are they capable of delivering in a short time without staying in the region too long. If the American forces stay in the region too long this will have implications as the suspicions about their interest in oil in Uganda, South Sudan and DRC is already ripe.

Here is what I shared with Al Jazeera Newshour the day the winners were announced on Friday 7 October.

This week at the press briefing in Kigali, I asked President Paul Kagame what this prize meant for Africa.

I am only happy for the women of Africa. We need to go beyond this being a symbol for women. Women need attention not just in Africa but in the rest of the world. When I travel and read i see marginalisation of women. We appreciate the quest to empower women and have them as an integral part of our society on equal terms. But as we get help here in Africa, i feel we may need to take this help to some of these countries. For instance you go to discuss business in these countries and all their boards have about 20 men and one or two women. They too need help. This Prize is a reminder that we should work beyond the prize that was given for us to meet expectations of women of Africa. We need more women presidents!

In the interview I mentioned the status of women in South Sudan and I intend to write a separate post soon from my recent trip to Juba and interactions with women leaders in that country.