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FIDA Uganda files application to protect women in cohabiting relationships

17 December, 2022
1090

Women activists under the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers commonly known as FIDA-
Uganda have filed an application before the High Court in Kampala seeking orders to compel the
government to enact a law that protects people, especially women in cohabiting relationships.


The law in Uganda recognizes only three forms of marriage, religious, civil, and customary marriages.
Cohabitation is where couples choose to leave together or have a sexual relationship without marrying in
accordance with Ugandan laws.
This, the activists say, has left people in cohabiting relationships without protection, especially where
laws on ownership of matrimonial property recognize only people formally married under the three forms
of marriage.
Elizabeth Kemigisha, an advocacy officer with FIDA says that the absence of a law that categorically
provides for the rights of people in cohabitation relationships, during their subsistence and upon their
dissolution; also has a disproportionate effect on women.
She says women are prone to abuse owing to the existing gender imbalances, which for many women,
make productive resources such as land, only accessible to them through their male relations.

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