I have only recently been introduced to Battered Women Support Services and I’ve been amazed by their ability to effect change in the fight for equality. Growing up in Canada I always heard stories about the horrible things that were happening in other countries but I have only recently come to realize the extent to which these problems are occurring both within our country and on a global scale. Thank you for your work in the journey towards equal opportunity for all people.
Gulu, a place where people sing and dance better than anybody I’ve ever seen on TV. The place where I finally found peace and began seeing the world with the youthful optimism I had misplaced somewhere in my preteen years. I haven’t been there in almost a year and half due to bad timing and warnings of unsafe conditions on my last trip to Uganda but I will never forget the first place I called home. What was I doing in such a place and why do I want to go back so badly? Believe it or not this question was unknowingly answered two weeks ago by one of the leaders at BWSS.
My sister, Bronwyn, was the most important person in my life for most of my childhood and teenage years. On October 3rd, 2006 she drifted off the side of the road and a fencepost came through the front window killing her instantly; she was the only one in the car. I blamed a lot of people for the accident at the time, including myself. Almost three years later I look back with slightly wiser eyes and realize there is no one to blame, or is there? Although I cannot and never will point fingers at any specific person, until now, I have always felt like there was something left unsaid.
I remember how my sister would rush into the house crying after the men who lived down the street would whistle at her and make obscene comments about how large her breasts were; she was 14. As high school continued she became obsessed with the way she looked and would often turn to me as her unassuming younger brother for fashion advice. I was always truthful and she knew that I thought she was beautiful so she didn’t mind if I told her something looked funny. It wasn’t me she was concerned about though, it was everybody else. As the years went by she increasingly struggled to fit the anorexic standard of beauty that is portrayed in most mainstream media. Nonetheless, by the age of 23 she was on her way to becoming an actor and she realized the sacrifices she would need to make in order to achieve her goals. Unfortunately, she believed the only way to stay thin was a life of drug abuse and forced regurgitation. Sometimes I think back to the battle that she must have been fighting her whole life, a battle I was all but unaware of. Technically her death was caused by a car crash but I now know it was a whole lot more than that. It was the accumulation of stress from the pressure of trying to look like a Barbie doll.
Ironically I gained almost 30 pounds the month she died and badly needed an outlet of some sort to reorient the destructive energy I had accumulated. This lead me to an organization in Uganda called ‘The Bavubuka Foundation’ who I have been working with for almost three years. After returning to Vancouver from her funeral in southern Ontario I got people to donate sports equipment and raised money for what would be my first trip to Uganda. Even though I had done my best to research the country and visualize what it would be like when I got there I could have never imagined what I was about to get myself into.
Northern Uganda is home to one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet and is notorious for the shocking number of child soldiers. It is less commonly known to have one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world. In fact, according to World Vision AIDS was responsible for almost 70% of the deaths in Gulu town in 2004. This is a remarkably high percentage considering that international aid agencies in collaboration with the government have been spending millions of dollars annually to educate the Ugandan people and combat the disease for more then 20 years. However, most of the women I had the opportunity to speak with during my time in Gulu gave me a much more horrifying look into the truth behind the statistics. They told me stories about the rapes and sexual defilement that is common in what is the largest Internally Displaced Peoples camp in the world. Just as my sister showed me the brutal reality hidden beneath layers of sexual propaganda in the western media, the women in Gulu taught me that the longest running conflict in Africa isn’t against Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, it’s against the women and children that most of us will never hear of.
Over my time with Bavubuka we have encountered varying levels of bigotry that exist in all shapes and forms from city officials to parents and even volunteers. I believe that education, journalism and new media will be key to the fight against sexual inequality both in Africa and Globally. I have been blessed to meet so many other activists who have realized we are all responsible for protecting the future of this planet. Which leads me to back to the BWSS activist who recently helped me answer one of the most difficult questions I have been asked since I decided to dedicate most of my time to Uganda; why Africa? I have come to recognize the reason I have an affinity towards Uganda is that it is at the forefront of the fight against the sexual injustices that are at the root of human kind’s discombobulated international affairs and subsequently failing global economy. That is why I was there and that is why I want to go back so badly.
Sexism is an invisible plague that is taking the lives of women around the world and continues to deprive women of true equality. Although I am not a woman and I could never pretend to fully understand how arduous sexual prejudice is for females, I have seen the consequences of patriarchal societies both personally and within a global context. As a result of these experiences I have realized that we are all responsible for taking the initiative to end this chauvinistic madness. With that, I ask everybody reading this to get involved with a group that is affecting change if they haven’t already or continue capitalizing on their potential to build a beautiful future.
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