Human Rights Defender of the Month: Brenda Kugonza

November 2019
HRDs of the Month, News, Uganda

Brenda Kugonza has fought for women’s rights in Uganda for more than 13 years, and is currently the Executive Director of Women Human Rights Defenders Network-Uganda (WHRDN-U). As one of the network’s founding members, her goal is to raise awareness and knowledge about women’s struggles, especially sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).“As a defender, you lose friends and family members – they don’t want to be associated with someone who brings them shame. We are viewed as women with bad manners and I struggle daily with discrimination,” she affirms.

WHRDN-U was born from a call by women human rights defenders (WHRDs) who felt they needed their own network to articulate their needs and protection strategies. In coming together, they “created a sense of sisterhood,” Kugonza stress. WHRDN-U is key in “promoting a holistic feminist protection approach for at-risk WHRDs. The network has given us hope,” she continues. Due to lack of financial resources, however, she is at times forced to use her own money to ensure the women are protected.

Promoting a holistic feminist protection approach for at-risk WHRDs. The network has given us hope.

Brenda Kugonza Tweet

Born and raised in Uganda, Kugonza says she started defending human rights at the age of ten. Her zeal has seen her lead various women organisations and projects, including working with UN Women and the Council for Economic Empowerment for Women of Africa-Uganda. In 2007, while with the Forum for African Women Educationalist, she led a successful campaign to stop early marriages and school dropouts, in addition to being very vocal in the advocacy against the Anti-Homosexuality Act (2014) and the Anti-Pornography Act (2014).

Kugonza has not been immune to the challenges that come with being a WHRD and a feminist. As a young woman activist, her women’s rights advocacy, especially against SGBV, land rights, and anti-human trafficking, drew criticism from her family and community members. The first time she published a press statement on SGBV and LGBT+ rights, they attacked her and accused her of being a prostitute and a man-hater, she recalls. Further, “they threw insults at me, saying that by supporting women that were victims of SGBV, I would break their marriages. Relatives made comments like ‘we are all getting married and you will not get married because of the work you are doing.’ They also asked intimidating questions like ‘why are you involving yourself in the marriage affairs of others?’ At one point it got physical when a police officer assaulted me for demanding answers why a man had been released without formal charges, yet he had been arrested for assaulting his wife.”

they threw insults at me, saying that by supporting women that were victims of SGBV, I would break their marriages. Relatives made comments like ‘we are all getting married and you will not get married because of the work you are doing.’ They also asked intimidating questions like ‘why are you involving yourself in the marriage affairs of others?’ At one point it got physical when a police officer assaulted me for demanding answers why a man had been released without formal charges, yet he had been arrested for assaulting his wife

Brenda Kugonza Tweet

She stresses that more attention needs to be given to WHRDs, especially in light of the digital revolution. “At national level, we need solidarity! It shouldn’t only be the women organisations speaking out. National protection mechanisms need to do more. They can’t just sit in their office and define protection needs. They need to talk with women – they need to address the fact that we are attacked because we are women, including sexual harassment and sexual assault.”

“Women are organisers, women are doing a lot of work. We have contributed to the development of the country. We have helped the community and promoted education. We are honouring the women that never give up. The women are saying: we cannot sit back!” she adds.

See more HRDs of the Month

Human Rights Defender of the month: Hiader Abdalla Abu Gaid

Hiader Abdalla Abu Gaid is one of the lucky survivors of Sudan’s latest conflict.

He was born 36 years ago, in Almalha locality, North Darfur state, the third born in a family of 10. Then, Darfur was not the hot bed of war and conflict it has since become infamous for. Although the region, predominantly inhabited by Sudan’s black population remained segregated by the predominantly Arab government in Khartoum, its people co-existed in thriving, predominantly subsistence communities. In Almalha, people reared camels and cattle, while others tended crops. The community was also famed for its hospitality to strangers, welcoming outsiders who ended up staying, owning land, and intermarrying with their hosts.

Human Rights Defender of the month:Immaculate Nabwire and Daphne Nakabugo

In personality, Immaculate Nabwire and Daphne Nakabugo could not be more different. Where the former is loud, if free-spirited, and mischievous, the latter is quiet, reticent, and predominantly solitary. Together though, they are the quiet champions behind DefendDefenders’ digital skilling programs, equipping (women) human rights defenders with critically transformative – and sometimes, life-saving digital tools and skills.
“You’ll be surprised how many people out there, including the literate are not exposed to the idea of digital safety. And as technology gets more advanced, it is getting ever more lucrative for hackers and other malign actors, which means that the urgency of the need for digital security skills for everyone cannot be over-stated,” says Daphne.

Human Rights Defender of the month:Mary Pais Da Silva

On 17 February 2023, in Ethiopia’s rustic resort of Bishoftu, more than 5000Km from her homeland, Mary Da Silva was announced winner of the 2023 AfricanDefenders Shield Award, in the presence of hundreds of colleague human rights defenders from 36 African countries. It was a fitting validation for the Eswatini human rights lawyer, whose sense of empathy and sensitivity to injustice has been a defining hallmark of her career.
Born 45 years ago in Lubombo, eastern Eswatini, the last of 4 siblings, Mary attributes her values to her upbringing. Although she was born in Eswatini, her parents are originally from Mozambique, and only relocated to eSwatini at the start of the Mozambican civil war that lasted between 1977-1992, which ravaged families and displaced many others.

Human Rights Defender of the month: Jane Naini Meriwas

Like many African societies, The Samburu community in Northern Kenya is a gerontocracy – a very hierarchical community in which elders hold sway over almost all private and public matters. Among these predominantly pastoral nomads, very little importance is attached to the young – especially young girls, who are barely given a chance at education and often married off before their first menstrual cycle, but not before they undergo mandatory Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
It is in this community that Jane Naini Meriwas was born 46 years ago, in Kipsing village, Oldonyiro Subcounty, Isiolo County. When she was 16, her mother passed on, and she watched with great trepidation as her father planned to marry another wife, not sure what that would mean for her or her ambitions for school. As it turned out, fate was on her side. When her father uncharacteristically asked what she thought of his plans, Jane seized the opportunity to stand up for herself and interests:

Human Rights Defender of the month: Kasale Maleton Mwaana

Kasale’s human rights activism precedes his years. The son of pastoralist parents from Ngorongoro district in northern Tanzania, he grew up seeing his parents and entire community having to defend their land and way of life against authorities who thought their lands could be put to better use. Now, at 25, Kasale is already one of the most recognizable advocates of his people’s cause, much to the ire of Tanzanian authorities.
“Our people’s struggle goes back many generations. It started with the pushing out of our forefathers from Serengeti to gazette Serengeti National Park in 1959, and then further evictions from the Ngorongoro crater to gazette the Ngorongoro conservation area in 1975. Since then, every generation has had to resist further evictions. It’s now my generation’s turn,” he says.

Human Rights Defender of the month: Pierre Claver Mbonimpa

Arguably no single individual personifies Burundi’s human rights struggle like Pierre Claver Mbonimpa. Born 72 years ago in the small East African country, Claver’s quest for human rights and justice is as old as his country’s modern history.

When his country was plunged into a civil war that killed an estimated 300,000 people following the 1993 assassination of President Cyprien Ntaryamira, Claver was one of its earliest victims. Then a close confidant (he was also a former driver) of the assassinated President, he was framed, and arrested, and would go on to spend the next two years between 1994 and 1996 in jail.

It is in prison that the ulcer of injustice bit him hard. There, he met inmates who had either been wrongfully imprisoned or who had been remanded for long periods without trial, all living in dehumanising conditions. “I was strongly revolted by the injustice. Here were probably innocent people whose years were being wasted away by an unfair judicial system, with no one to stand up for them. I swore that I would try to do something about it once I got out myself,” he says.

Human Rights Defender of the month: Kamau Ngugi

On October 7, 2022, Kamau Ngugi was elected Chairperson of the East and Horn of Africa human rights defenders’ network (EHAHRD-net), a stirring affirmation for the Kenyan human rights defender’s efforts in defense of human rights that go back nearly 30 years.

But it was not always this promising for her. Born 37 years ago in Grand Kru, Southeastern Liberia, Margaret had to do with a childhood of abuse, neglect, and want, after her, her sibling and her mother were abandoned by their father at an early age.

Human Rights Defender of the month: Margaret Muna Nigba

A human rights lawyer per excellence, Margaret is also an indefatigable woman human rights defender (WHRD) who has won the adulation of millions in her country for her impassioned dedication to defending the rights of women and girls in her native Liberia.

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