The Coalition for Political Accountability to Women (COPAW) is a non-partisan alliance of rights based organisations and individuals committed to political accountability to women and to socio-political transformation in realising good governance in Uganda. COPAW in collaboration with Uganda Women's Network (UWONET) organised a series of meetings last year (2003) to chart out clear and distinct issues to put to political parties and organisations as Uganda transits to pluralism. The draft memorandum is available through the link below and comments can be sent to [email protected].

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has backed the proposed refugee bill saying it could turn out as an international model of a good refugee law. Erika Feller, the agency's director for international protection, said the bill was a good innovation because it touched on almost all the important aspects of refugee protection. "It is very positive in the way it integrates gender and gender persecution as a ground for refugee status. This is something we have advocated for long. It is positive on family related issues. It's very positive on the right and responsibilities of refugees, it absolves and expands the definition of a refugee," she told The New Vision.

The child rights group, Save the Children, has warned that the children in northern Uganda may suffer most if the International Criminal Court (ICC) decides to prosecute Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels for war crimes, unless questions of child protection are raised before it proceeds to investigate the rebels. In a statement issued last week, the organisation said that since "children are by far the main witnesses (and victims)" of war crimes committed by the LRA, the LRA leadership "might apply even more strict discipline to prevent witnesses from escaping".

The education ministry and stakeholders are to establish a database on the protection of children during and after emergency in the war-affected districts of northern Uganda. This was disclosed by the state minister for education and sports, Henry Oryem, during a regional education workshop at St. Lira Hotel recently. Oryem called for a restoration of the school infrastructure destroyed by the war.

Deborah, 46 cohabited with a man for eight years then separated after producing two bouncing boys. Her sister Anatasia, 40, separated after cohabiting for years and producing three daughters. Both of them returned to their parents in Kabermaido, where they were allocated a plot of land. However, last year their brothers evicted them on grounds that they had no right to inherit an inch of their father's land. Now they are not only landless but have no home.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who killed scores of internally displaced persons in a camp near the northern town of Lira on 5 February gained access to the camp by pretending to be government soldiers and militias. Suspicions were aroused when the rebels started deploying throughout the camp and ordering people not to move. A full-scale attack on the largely defenceless population in the camp was then launched. Contrary to government reports, victims said the rebels had deliberately opened fire on civilians inside the camp, and then, brandishing machetes and clubs, chased those who tried to run away.

Recently, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni asked the International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate and prosecute rebels and rebel leader Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA. By jumping out first to the ICC, looking for an opportunity to prosecute Kony, Museveni is pointing fingers at his fellow thugs knowing full well that he too will have to face justice. To heal the wounds and scars of the 18-year old genocide in Acholi both Kony and Museveni must appear before a war crimes tribunal.

Hail a taxi in New York City, and the odds are that your driver will be a wise-cracking male cabbie who's unafraid to share his philosophy about life with you. But, do the same in Kampala, and you may just get a sharp female graduate who's turned to taxi driving as a way of getting ahead in Uganda's uncertain job market. Margaret Isiko, 27, is a case in point. She's one of 16 women who've taken the wheel of metred taxi cabs that were introduced in Kampala last month. At the moment, 30 of these yellow cabs are plying the streets of the Ugandan capital.

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels attacked a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Oneko, 10 km west of the northern town of Gulu, on Monday night, killing two people near the camp, according to local sources and the Ugandan army. The sources said the rebels attacked a nearby army barracks, killing the son and wife of a soldier stationed there to defend the camp. Eight other people were wounded in the raid. "They [the LRA] also burned a number of huts, but we don't know about any abductions," a source told IRIN.

A Parliamentary committee has asked the government to revoke the Nile Treaty with Egypt. The committee on natural resources says the pre-independence treaties give Egypt monopoly over the Nile waters. It also wants Egypt to pay sh2b for damages by the rising lake levels as per a 1950 agreement. The agreement, signed by the British on behalf of Uganda, allows Egypt to pay for rising water levels caused by its heavy industrialisation along the river.

President Museveni has said he is ready to hand over power in an orderly manner. "Let the opposition relax; I will hand over power when there is a good arrangement," Museveni said on Friday during the 10th graduation ceremony at Mbarara University of Science and Technology. Museveni's last term of office ends in 2006. Although he has not publicly stated any intention to seek another term, critics have accused him of not clarifying his stand on the matter in light of calls from some of his supporters to lift the two-term constitutional limit.

The signing of a wealth-sharing agreement earlier this month between Sudanese officials and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army was hailed an important step towards peace in that country. Now, hopes are growing that the accord might also spell the end of another conflict: that in northern Uganda. Since 1986, this region has been plagued by fighting between government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Headed by Joseph Kony, the group says it wants to establish a new government in Uganda based on the Biblical ten commandments.

Martin Oketch, 13, sat his Primary Leaving Examinations in Uganda late last year. His first choice for secondary education was St Mary's College Kisubi, one of the country's best boys' schools. "I want to become a doctor like Uncle Nathan,” he says, pointing to his relative. However, Martin's exam results - though good - were just shy of the grades needed to gain admission to Kisubi. He was just one casualty of an increasingly fierce competition to get a place in secondary school - this as Uganda's system of universal primary education (UPE) yields record numbers of primary school graduates.

UPDF soldiers have been named among the people who are raping girls in internally displaced people's (IDPs) camps in Kitgum district, Northern Uganda. The claims were made by a group of MPs following a fact-finding visit to the district last week.They said reports showed that girls were raped by their peers, men from the camps, rebels and UPDF soldiers. However, Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said that the report needed to be looked at critically.

A row has broken out between the army and residents of Uganda's biggest Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) settlement, Pabbo camp, in the northern Gulu District, with the army claiming that the camp harbours rebel collaborators and the IDPs accusing the army of starting a fire which destroyed much of the camp during an operation to arrest suspects. Pabbo houses over 62,000 people fleeing Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) operations in northern Uganda. They are part of at least 1.2 million Ugandans who have been forced to take refuge in camps.

Peace groups and officials from the government’s Amnesty Commission have warned that the impending probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into war crimes committed by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels could make a peaceful settlement of the 18-year conflict impossible. "Certainly, this is going to make it very difficult for the LRA to stop doing what they are doing. They have already been branded ‘terrorists’, which isn’t going [to help] to easily persuade them to come," the Amnesty Commission spokesman, Moses Saku, told IRIN.

Michael, aged 25, was abducted by Lord's Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda. His captors beat him on the head with rifle-butts when he was no longer able to carry their loot and left him for dead. Government soldiers found him a week later. "Termites had started eating me alive," he recalls. "They had begun building an anthill on my body." Michael's is one of many personal testimonies published in "When the sun sets, we start to worry...", a book launched by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in conjunction with its Integrated Regional Information Networks.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken an important step toward opening its first investigation, the Coalition for an International Criminal Court (Coalition) has said. Following the referral by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of the situation concerning the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo announced that there is sufficient basis to "start planning for the first investigation." Several steps are required for a formal investigation to be launched. "Today's announcement by Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo is extremely important; it is now the duty of the Prosecutor to search for the truth about atrocities committed in northern Uganda," said David Donat Cattin, Legal Advisor for the International Law and Human Rights program at Parliamentarians for Global Action. "Other states facing similar situations should follow Uganda's precedent in welcoming ICC proceedings," he said.

A pregnant woman must visit a maternity facility for medical check-ups at least three times in her nine months of pregnancy, and one or two times after delivery. Not so for the woman in the congested displaced people's camp in northern Uganda with few health centres nearby. At Unyama camp there is only one Grade II health centre that serves 16,000 people. About six miles outside Gulu town, there is a Grade II health centre but no maternity ward.

Thirty poachers from Queen Elizabeth National Park have surrendered to Uganda Wildlife Authorities (UWA). Chief warden of Queen Elizabeth protected area, John Bosco Nuwe, said armed poaching had greatly reduced in the park. He said this was the third batch of poachers to surrender since last May.