The Iganga High Court judge David Batema has expressed concern over the rising number of brutal land evictions in the Iganga and Namutumba districts affecting several families in the area.

Despite efforts to prevent the practice, it continues to persist, leaving many families under threat of eviction or forcibly evicted from their ancestral land.

System of land ownership, Village land committee chairpersons, and greed have been identified as the major causes of increasing land disputes in the Busoga sub-region.

In Busoga, land is customarily owned where pieces of land belong to particular households, communities, and or the clan. Since there is no proof of ownership, everyone wants to use the same piece of land resulting in land disputes.

According to Thomas Matende, the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) of Namutumba, Records show that over 70 per cent of cases reported are land- or land-related.

Lubulwa Mwesigwa a lawyer with Redeem International organization has blamed men for the land wrangles which he says always affect the women who are left to cater for the children.

Mwesigwa adds that women are suffering at the hands of in-laws who struggle to divide the land left by their husbands thus spurring land wrangles. It is this point that prompted the civil society organization Redeem intentionally to hold a stakeholders meeting involving the judges, lawyers and security authorities to look forward to solving the increased land cases in the region.

In the meeting, Justice David Batema urged the human rights defenders to always sensitize the public to the law regarding respecting one's rights, especially the right to own property.

In Uganda, the percentage of registered land still stands at 22 per cent and most of this has been secured in the last 13 years with the establishment of the Land Information System. However, the ministry hopes to have registered at least 26 percent by 2030.