The President of the Democratic Party Women's League, Sarah Adong, has called for increased investment in access to justice for women and girls, reforms in the education sector, and a peaceful electoral process ahead of the upcoming Local Council elections.
Addressing a weekly press conference on Tuesday, Adong said this year's International Women's Day theme scaling up investment to accelerate access to justice for all women and girls remains far from reality due to persistent structural barriers.
"There are still significant financial, technical and political gaps that are preventing women and girls from accessing justice," Adong said.
"We continue to face limited legal awareness, inadequate legal aid and systemic failures within the justice system, which weaken gender-responsive mechanisms and efforts to combat gender-based violence."
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She argued that without increased resource allocation and deliberate reforms, many women, particularly at grassroots level, will remain excluded from legal protection and redress systems.
On education, Adong criticised what she described as the commercialisation of the sector, accusing private schools of imposing unnecessary tuition increases while many government primary schools remain in a deteriorating state.
"The education system has become the commercial arm of government," she said. "With high poverty levels, girls at the grassroots are being denied access to quality education."
She called on the Minister of Education, Janet Kataha Museveni, to urgently address rising school fees and the poor state of public schools.
Adong also questioned the inclusiveness of government women empowerment programmes, saying initiatives such as the Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) project have not benefited many rural women due to collateral requirements and limited transparency.
"Most enterprise women in rural areas have not benefited from these programmes," she said, urging the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to review implementation gaps.
Turning to politics, Adong raised concern over what she termed insufficient civic education ahead of the upcoming Local Council and Women Council elections expected between March and April.
"The Electoral Commission has not done enough civic awareness," she said, while urging party branch leaders to identify and prepare potential female candidates.
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She further called for free, fair and violence-free elections, appealing to security forces to remain neutral.
"The role of security should be to ensure the process goes on peacefully, not to interfere," Adong said.
