East African Business Week (Kampala)
David Mugabe
28 January 2008
Kampala Uganda — Ms Carol Nampiina's posting to her new workplace coincided with her monthly menstrual flow that fell in July, and it took her less than two days in her new office to try and confide in someone about her discomfort.
Nampiina was uncomfortable at office for unlike her previous residence where she easily disposed off her sanitary pads, her new office lacked a sanitary bin. During the times she had her flow, she had to wrap her used pad, keep it in her bag until late in the evening when she went back home to dispose it.
She confided in an older colleague who said she found the situation like that when she joined the company, and there were worse circumstances for women. Like the many forms of social omissions to the disadvantage of minorities, indications are that the lack of proper places for disposal of used sanitary pads is one of the overlooked practices prevailing in modern offices in Uganda.
And although some offices have women's exclusive toilets, they are not absolutely secure from male intrusion which threatens their privacy and dignity. But there are also offices which don't have "women's only" toilets at all.
"Even in our offices, there is no separation of toilets for sexes and this can have serious health consequences. Even our female colleagues here complain. My senior health officer is annoyed but we hope it will change," said Dr Mesach Mubiru, director of health services, Kampala City Council.
The Public Health Act, 2000, Chapter 281 states that privacy must be provided for by labeling whenever communities have both sexes working together. Mubiru says the same legal provisions protect workers even at private offices. Mubiru agrees it is a much flaunted provision.
It is a silent, sensitive yet progressive evil that the victims dare not come out loudly about it, just like in the many cases where women have had to quietly bare the brunt of social ostracisation.
The dirty and inconveniencing task of walking around with a used pad in a lady's bag contributes to the psychological barrier that even educated women have to live with just because the greater picture of having the job despite such trauma makes more sense.
"You can even use a bucket which costs about $2.1 (Ush3500) to $2.9 (5,000) only," said Ms. Mankolo Mercy who had to be pressed to talk about this sanitary subject having served in a high level office that lacked sanitary bins.
Mr. Mohammed Kirumiira, chief health inspector, KCC agrees that there is a problem hitting women sanitaion generally. Infact, Kampala, the quickly rising cosmopolitan city that in November 2007 hosted 50 heads of government in the Commonwealth meeting has been facing this discriminatory challenge.
Officials say the problem is most at Constitutional Square, Sure House and Goods Shade on Entebbe road which all have KCC toilets and are situated in and around the Kampala city centre.
At Constitutional Square, which is a central business location, there is a single entry for both sexes because the contractors built only one access door.
There is only one attendant maintaining both toilets, and he being a man, condemns the women's' side to poor service.
"The contractor economizes (to avoid paying more salaries)-he employs only one male attendant and there is no attendant on the ladies side to collect money or wash the toilets. How can a man clean ladies' toilets," asked Kirumiira.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act 2006 states that where persons of both sexes are or are intended to be employed, except in the case of buildings where the workers are all members of the same family, the convenience shall have proper, separate accommodation for persons of each sex, separate approaches for each sex." This is truly contravened in practice by the wider Ugandan society, in both public and private spheres.
KCC has 12 public toilets in and around the city centre and the management at City Hall concedes there is a general lack of concern for the womenfolk, right from the offices at City Hall.
"Like here (KCC offices), it is abused, women here have been complaining that the toilets get chocked because they (women) place pads into the pans and have very little flowing water to wash down the refuse," said Kirumiira.
With Dr. William Muhairwe, the managing director of Uganda's National Water and Sewerage Corporation recently disclosing that Uganda's main urban centres are just 10% sewered, the absurdity of the hygiene risks are glaring.
Humiliation
In office premises where there are no bins, the casual employees who are tasked with collecting and disposing rubbish are subjected to the ghastly nightmare of sometimes touching the bloodstained pads of their senior colleagues.
"We are not paid to remove their blood, we have our own," said Kato who works in a microfinance institution in Kamwokya outside Kampala.
Over the years, the practises that overlook minority groups have sunk to very low levels, affecting even the physically disabled. Apart from the big star hotels in and around Kampala, only Workers House (office building) has facilities that cater for the disabled.
Worker's House is an elegant uptown piece of real estate that was built from the worker's pension money. Its sophistication therefore means even if it was built from the workers savings, their toilet system is not easily accessible to the poor, disabled citizens.
"So if you are on a wheelchair in Kampala, you only have one spot in Kampala to ease yourself, Worker's House" said Mr. Mubarak Mabuya, principal gender officer at the Uganda ministry of gender, labour and social development
Mabuya admits there is a big problem and though KCC contracts private managers to handle the sanitation and hygiene matters, it is their responsibility to inspect and see that the law is followed and segregated and minority sectors are protected.
"But most people do this out of ignorance. Even the engineers only build ramps for wheelchairs not knowing that some disabled are blind and do not need the ramps. So if the engineer is able bodied, they may not mind much about the blind," said Mabuya.
The legal provisions that provide for safeguard of minority groups are fairly new and their provisions affect the entire society. It is therefore striking that they are not adhered to.
"Who does not go to the toilet? Who does not need a clean toilet," asked Mabuya.
"The disabled have complained to the Division Councillors but they have had no response. Yet it costs less than $5,882 (Ush 10 million) to permanently fix handlers for the disabled to comfortably use the public toilets," said Kirumiira.
An earlier survey conducted by Forum for African Women Education indicated that a good number of school drop outs among primary school girls was due to poor hygiene and sanitation in schools.
Humiliating discrimination?
Mr. Peter Fuuna, assistant lecturer, women and gender studies at Makerere University argues that the whole lot of society here is skewed against women, right from technological designs where women do not have a say. For instance, even in private homes, toilet facilities are designed with little regard for women who have to squat on the seats while men stand and soil the seats.
"As a man, I may not know women go through these problems, because whenever I see them, they look okay. Even as we grow up, we don't see these things, we just learn about them, it is a sacred thing kept away from us. So when we are planning, we build toilets simply for what we know-that people go to toilets for long and short call," said Fuuna.
Experts on gender issues therefore advise that women must have more say in technology designs. But the problem is compounded by men dominating the field of science and technology.
"They (women) should be the change agents," said Fuuna.
Fuuna says that the failure by society including women to come out openly about this negative hygienic and sanitary practises affecting women shows how they (women) have had to bear the psychological torture which gender experts say hampers their self confidence ultimately impacting on their development.
The failure by women to sometimes come out loudly about this discriminatory and risky tendency is compounded by the failure of decision makers to have gender budgets in offices, both public and private.
Mabuya, who is a gender expert observes that a private sector led environment, where profit is paramount presents a challenge where social and gender issues are not prioritised and left uncatered for.
"The overseers just monitor whether revenue is collected," says Mabuya.
Mr. John Ssempebwa, who works for a top international audit firm agrees that if you do not have a gender budget, if a need arises, you will never cater for it. So when Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni spoke of reducing tax on sanitary pads in the 2001 presidential campaigns, the women answered: "How many of us use those things-you are reducing tax for a small class not for a majority of all women."
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