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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the role of women, authority and employment under the Uganda National Liberation Front in Acholiland in the period 1979-1980. It attempts to explain how despite their invisibility in politics, they continued to exhibit resilience during this period of political uncertainty.

Paper long abstract:

This talk aims at interrogating and documenting women in politics, authority, and employment in Acholiland under the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) Government (1979-80). Women's affairs were not a national priority, and given limited scholarly and media coverage as Government focused on national rehabilitation. No government affirmative institutional arrangement was available for the inclusion of women politics and employment. In Acholiland, women, authority, and government employment under the UNLF was not widely documented. Empirical material for this work is majorly from the interview materials, newspapers, archival materials and secondary sources covering the period 1979-1980 collected between April and November 2022 to retell women’s experiences. Minimal participation of women in national and local politics, and employment was generally observed as a trend in post-colonial Uganda. Despite this general trend, some women in exile were visible in politics and employment abroad and on return home. Women used political and social networks, and family connections as social capital to maneuver public space, civil society and cultural space. They had influence as household roles shifted with the disappearance and the exiling of their husbands during Idi Amin’s regime. The after-effects of Amin's regime changed things, rather than the UNLF which had no national agenda for women. Shift in the social and political dynamics due to the Amin’s military regime, and the way elite men were affected by the regime, pushed women into the public sphere.