Women Resisting Large Scale Land Acquisitions: A case of Amuru District, Uganda

Uganda has not been spared by the increased Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs), big chucks of land continue to be acquired not only by the foreign investors but also the domestic elite groups of people as well as government. The impact of this is quite enormous not only on the side of women basing on the fact that they are the main users of land. This paper uses both primary and secondary data to examine how women in Amuru district are confronting this land acquisitions, this paper examines how the women are using the law to challenge the land acquiring, it does so using social-legal approaches such as 1). Legal consciousness aiming at finding out how women understand and interpret the law, courts of law as well the judges and all those charged with making laws in Uganda. 2) It also goes ahead to use a mobilization approach, this aims at looking how the women are using the law to confront the LSLAs in this district; and lastly is the Legal Empowerment approach which looks at how women actually are mobilised by others, or call it empowered, to claim their rights. Key findings from this research have shown that women are frustrated with the legal system in Uganda: they contend that they have not been helped enough when it comes to dealing with officials in the legal institution. Secondly, because of the lack of trust in the legal system, they have tended to use various methods to show their dissatisfaction in the system but all in the name of fighting for their land rights. Thirdly, is that there are key organizations which have identified this gap of lack of the women’s awareness and so they have embarked on training and sensitizations workshops with community leaders.