Domestic violence: silence behind most male survivors in Arua

“We have two boys and a girl, and I can only afford to pay for the eldest child because most of our family wealth has been depleted by paying off loans.”

For the past seven months, as a single parent, Adomati has been struggling to pay off the Shs1.2 million debt imposed on him by his ex-wife before the break-up.

“This woman (his wife) secretly borrowed Shs1.2 million for no apparent reasons and without my knowledge,” the cobbler complains, adding: “I had to sell all the products to repay the loan as the village groups wanted to take all my animals. ”

The marriage, cemented by a dowry paid by Adomati in 2019, ended early this year after his wife believed he was not man enough to provide for the family.

“Every time I left for work at Ajia Market, she would dress neatly and leave the children’s house unattended and not return until 10 p.m.,” he said.

An attempt to save the marriage

The most famous immediate solutions he sought never delivered, but only escalated the problem.

“Every time I tried to talk to her about her late movements, she got angry, so I called for a clan meeting, but she didn’t heed warnings,” he says.

The disrespect continued to the point where she would deny him marital rights. He only learned about her infidelity after she left him and the children for a richer man.

He says, “I was stressed, but I kept the pain to myself because of cultural constructs and I was afraid to speak out.”

His case is not an isolated one as more men like him in Arua and the surrounding area have to suffer silently from intimate partner violence due to such cultural views on how family conflicts should be handled.

According to the Child and Family Protection Unit of Arua Central Police Station, about 67 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) reported by men were recorded between January and August 2024.

The findings identify different forms of abuse among men: approximately 30 men experience sexual abuse, 12 men experience emotional abuse, while 15 men experience economic abuse in a six-month period.

The silence of shame for most male survivors is linked to cultural connotations that discourage men from speaking out about the growing vice in the region.

Aruba is a Lugbara cultural justice mechanism intended to reconcile individuals who have accessed formal justice systems and escalated their conflict. The concept was developed under the taboo: ‘Mundu ba ere ere’, which means that the formal legal system breaks people and vital social relationships.

“In our culture, if a man and a woman have a fight and it causes bruises and disabilities in the body, you don’t report it to the authorities because it brings cursing, death and strange diseases in families. So people are silently suffering from such cultural norms,” explains Susan Ezatia, leader at Lugbara Cultural Institution-Lugbara Kari.

Aruba, which was intended to help individuals who have suffered various forms of marital pain to instead seek advice from elders or handle matters within their households, has been widely abused as a punishment, especially for those who experiencing abuse at home.

This misinterpretation of the mechanism that Aruba is trying to address in households explains the problems Adomati has been facing for a while.

“I could sue this woman, but I fear my children’s future will suffer setbacks. So I cannot continue with the case with the police,” he says.

Ezatia described Aruba as a mechanic who helps families experiencing different forms of violence reconcile their misunderstandings. She notes that they have even gone to hospitals to investigate this standard because it is said that your skin becomes light or your children die or become malnourished.

“Together with the victims, we examined children and discovered that the children suffered from kwashiorkor,” she says.

She adds that many have come to the revelation that the negative connotations surrounding Aruba are merely a myth and a system of control and torture of others.

“We have also had a community dialogue involving the men and women and getting to the root causes of some of the problems. And how they can be resolved by involving intermediaries or close relatives to promote reconciliation and thus bring about changes in the community.”

A similar problem or breaking barriers

Lawrence Auma testifies to breaking the barriers that Aruba creates. Auma shares his ordeal of surviving an 11-year abusive relationship.

“My wife was only 17 and I was 22 years old when we got married. She was insecure about my work. Since I was a boda boda rider, she considered every female client my lover. This made her become hard on me,” the 32-year-old survivor speaks of the atrocities he faced as he struggled to pull his family out of the clutches of poverty.

“It was tough, my wife heard rumors about me and my female clients because she did nothing as a housewife and confronted me both at work and at home,” he says.

He talks about times when he felt ashamed at work, and even days when he had to go hungry because he was not given meals at home.

However, he decided to speak out and when the issue was not resolved at the family level, he approached the local leadership.

“When I involved the LCs, I was guided and kept in good company with other men with great solutions. I was also associated with a community organization that offered my wife a role as a para-social worker. She is busy now and has no time to start conflicts.”

Harriet Fikira, Community Advocacy Focus Person at Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CEFORD), expresses concern over the silence of men, which is escalating cases of GBV in Arua.

“Men tend to keep quiet because people think they are strong and are expected to tolerate their problems. If they say anything, they are considered weak. This is different from the women who seek guidance and advice,” she says.

Fikira recommends that men use safe spaces as a separate arrangement, away from women, to talk openly about their problems.

“Men need a friendly approach and should be more involved in talking about GBV-related issues and given private sessions where they can easily open up,” she emphasizes, further pointing out the cultural issues that limit male involvement.

“The males are afraid to speak out because once these issues are reported to the authorities, they will demand that they sacrifice animals to resolve conflicts. So the men prefer to suffer in silence,” Fikira adds.

To put an end to such barriers, she says, “There is hope that this issue will end as cultural leaders are involved in our sensitization meetings to encourage men to speak out on these issues.

“We also meet men in communities because we realized that they are usually in groups, making them easy to reach.”

Jimmy Anguyo, the West Nile Regional Gender Focal Person at Arua Central Police Station, says authorities are working tirelessly to break the cultural barriers that prevent men from seeking help.

“The cases reported so far have doubled compared to last year. We are happy that men are coming to report cases because violence is a crime. The police are working with Lubara Kari, church leaders and other stakeholders to raise awareness to encourage men to report cases,” Anguyo said.

Most survivors, he notes, do not want to open up publicly, explaining: “Men believe that if they report a case of violence, they are no longer in charge of the house and women have taken their place. However, we call on the public to report more cases of men abused by women for the purposes of accountability, planning and management.”

Authorities say the perpetrators are usually women who take revenge on their husbands for not taking care of the home and take advantage of their alcoholism while they are weak and unable to fight back.

Reported cases include malicious damage and threats of violence.

“Prosecution is not our priority, we prefer to handle cases outside the legal systems, especially when it comes to family misunderstandings. So we mediate, hold dialogue, discuss and come up with a solution, and if nothing is achieved, we use the courts as a last resort,” SP Anguyo explains, adding: “We also monitor follow-ups at their home and if that is not the case, goes well, we advise accordingly.”

More interventions have been carried out by civil society organizations. For example, Save the Children operates resettlement centers or shelters for children and families seeking protection from various forms of violence, where survivors are temporarily housed before being matched with probation officers to locate their homes and help them return to health with their families.

Ronald Kabagambe, a parasocial worker and resident of Etoleni Village, Kuluva Parish in Arua District, shares that the GBV-related cases against men in the region are largely linked to poverty.

“Poverty drives families to fights and quarrels, leading to GBV. The best way to tackle this is by sensitizing families and communities and involving local leaders, opinion leaders and religious leaders, among others,” says Kabagambe.

Kabagambe urges men to know their rights and emerge from oppression.

“It is necessary to move away from stereotyping men as the superior people who should address issues as this affects their willingness to share challenges. He summarizes it this way: “A protected dignity is a life lost to gender-based violence.