Women and poverty in the slums.

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By Hellen Nyamweru:Women and girls in the slums are particularly affected by the harsh conditions the slum presents.Inadequate services ranging from housing with little accessibility to  water,health,sanitation,schools and other essential basic services.Women for instance have different physical needs than men and have a greater  private need of toilet and bathing services.Inadequate bathing and toilet facilities as well as in effective policing in the slums exposes women to rape and other forms of violence .Violence in the slums is endemic and goes widely unpunished because of fear of reprisals and attacks from perpetrators.This among other factors contributes to making and keeping the slum women poor.

Most women lives in the slums are characterized by the daily struggle to feed their families.Majority of these women are single mothers who have been left/abandoned by their husbands with several children to take care of.Their husbands fail to pay alimony and the burden of children is left to the women which impairs their ability to get any gainful employment and thus contributes to keeping them poor.In addittion,most women in the slums do not own the structures they live in,they lease them and pay rent which also takes away the little savings they might have made.Inadequate sanitary facilities enhances the high incidence of disease and infections among women in the slums.This has a big impact on their health and they have to spend on the little they have on treating themselves.

In line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) ,Uganda is committed to reducing by half-between 1990-2015,the proportion of people without sustainable access to sanitation.The Government has ambitious plans to ensure that 90% of households will have  access to a hygienic,affordable and sustainable toilet by 2015.However existing Government policies fail to address government failure to enforce laws obliging landlords and structure owners to construct sanitary facilities for tenants in the slums and this continues to affect the lives of many in the slums negatively.The federation of slum dwellers in Uganda is committed to bringing some of these gaps to light.

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Through the enumeration exercises that have been carried out in many regions of Uganda,slum dwellers intend to use the findings to negotiate and lobby for many of the basic services lacking in the slums.The findings will open doors that have been closed in the past,they will give a voice to many who had been voiceless and recognize the slum dwellers as an integral part of the city entitled to all other services provided by the government to all citizens of Uganda.The time to do this is now,the wait is over!!