Meet Aisha, she has eight children and is HIV positive. She is a widow. Her husband died of HIV; however, he concealed his illness and refused he had it. Because if this denial he never received treatment.
Aisha is very strong. She grows her own food, both to sell and to feed her family. She educates her children and takes the necessary steps to be informed about her illness. Yet, she is very vulnerable. Her husband had two other wives and left sixteen children total, all sharing one small plot of land. Aisha and her children have been victims of property grabbing. In the middle of the night one of her stepsons came and burned her house down. After the home burned down, she started living in her husband’s brother’s house. Soon after she started living there, he died. Since which, she has been violently threatened to leave the land by the rest of her husband’s family. If that isn’t bad enough, the same stepson that burned her house down before is threatening to do it again, this time with the goal of Aisha and her children in it. Aisha is a single mom just trying to make a living, care for and educating her eight children while also managing a serious illness.
Property grabbing is not just a family matter as many would like to believe, it is a criminal matter. Women’s property and inheritance rights are being threatened constantly in Uganda. With that, the lives of women and children are in jeopardy. We couldn’t stand and watch these egregious acts occurring anymore. That is why we formed the ROWAN Property and Land Protection Program. We feel strongly about the importance of this program because we are called to seek justice, to defend the oppressed, to take up the case of the fatherless and to plead the case of the widow.
We are called to plead Aisha’s case.
