Why are the Young men disproportionately in Conflict with the law? Reflections on the ‘male face’ of remand homes in Uganda

 

By: Amon A Mwiine & Elizabeth Atuheire

 

Introduction

On the August 3^rd, 2023, we paid a visit to Naguru Remand Home as part of the academic field supervision of Makerere University students on an ongoing internship programme. In our conversation with the staff at the Home, it was noted that at the time, the home housed 6 female juveniles and 135 male juveniles. We were particularly struck by the gendered disproportionate nature of these statistics in which young men seemed overwhelmingly getting into conflict with the law. Many of these juveniles are reportedly accused of crimes related to sexual abuse e.g., defilement, theft, trespass, murder, drug abuse, among others. These statistics are not unique to Naguru remand home alone. In 2018, an annual statistical report on remand homes, rehabilitation and reception centers by the Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development indicated that male juveniles were the highest registered throughout all Remand Homes in the Country. Over the review period, out of a total intake of 1,388 juveniles, 1,259 were males compared to 129 female juveniles registered. Very recently, in mid July 2023, a one-minute video message trended in the social media showing a female member of Parliament submitting on the floor of the August house similar concerns of overwhelming numbers of young men in remand homes. The honorable member talked about how legislators’ visit to remand homes across the country revealed a surprising trend in which almost all juveniles are males. She noted that in Kampiringisa of the 194 remandees only 4 were girls, in Fort portal, of the 75 remandees only one was a girl while in Masindi, all the 55 remandees were male juveniles. The legislator later highlighted what she termed the neglected investment in the “boy child” that apparently explains this dire situation.

In Uganda, children who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, committing crimes that require more than just a caution, are detained in one of the six remand homes in the country (Fort portal, Mbale, Masindi, Arua and Naguru remand homes,) apart from those convicted of the crimes. Those who have been tried and sentenced are imprisoned at the National Rehabilitation Center at Kampiringisa. The remand homes are a responsibility of the ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development.

While these statistics overtly point to the obvious - boys and young men overwhelmingly getting in conflict with the law – it is the underlying social dynamics responsible for this trend that remain taken for granted in everyday life and in the policy and programming for child offenders. So, what could explain why the young men disproportionately find themselves on the wrong side of the law? What do we learn from this social concern?  

Social Media response to statistics of young men in remand homes.

When we shared these statistics on different fora including feminist academic forums, there were mixed reactions with some commentators feeling ‘concerned’ by the masculine proneness to criminal actions and wondered how these statistics can be interrogated further to understand the hidden roots of this social problem and the implications it has on social development. Others wondered whether we might need to be more purposeful in focusing on the ‘boy child’ especially suggesting alternative models to nurture positive masculinities. On the other hand, there were more questions asked about the statistics and the public display of these. Some commentators wondered what was ‘new’ with these statistics that warranted our telling of this story. They enquired; “Has anything changed? Is this not what we have always known?” There were also those (seemingly sarcastic) comments that wondered whether, by sharing these statistics, we wanted to appeal for higher and equal numbers of female Juveniles in remand homes. Undoubtedly, the statistics and people's responses to our posting of these were equally concerning and problematic. We share these revelations below.

Patriarchal normalization of masculine proneness to violence/crime

Firstly, the lack of concern and indifference by some commentators seemed to speak to the normalisation of masculine association with crime, regardless of the age of the juveniles or the impact of being in a remand home on the health and future aspirations of the young men. Normalising this association of crime and male behaviour. A closer look at the different parenting models and practices and the ways in which boys are raised, parents’ relationship with boy children, their emotional closeness (or the lack of it), the games they are encouraged by the media and capitalist markets to play, the toys they cherish, point to social processes that nurture young boys towards ‘trouble’. One can easily observe the risky, aggressive and competitive behaviours that are often socially endorsed amongst young boys as well as the inattention to masculine weakness and vulnerability which all point to a social process that gradually nurture boys and young men in ways that make them prone to running in conflict with the law. For example, it is not uncommon in most cultural contexts in Uganda for male babies to be restrained from crying, just because they are expected to bear the pain as the ideal form of manliness. In some cases, crying young boys will be teased and asked Onaba mussajja nabaki ggwe? (What sort of a man will you be?).

In bell hook’s work (The will to change: men, masculinity and love), it is argued that boys are often not seen as lovable in patriarchal culture. She observes that many parents often let male infants cry without a comforting touch because they fear that holding baby boys too much and comforting them too much, might cause them to grow up wimpy. Patriarchal culture influences parents to devalue the emotional development of boys. In effect, the way boys are socialized in our families and the general society subtly endorses aggression, risk taking, control, domination, substance abuse, as normative vehicles for establishing the manhood of boys and men. This social learning, unfortunately reproduces and gradually legitimizes rather than questions social processes through which these problematic forms of male behaviors are constructed.

The family role!

During interactions with officers at the remand home, they told us that the families of these young boys give less attention to their wellbeing as they often times leave the boys to wonder around the villages and towns while attention  is rendered to the girl child who usually stays at home doing house chores and other motherly activities. Parents should hold full responsibility of their children so that they receive appropriate moral uprightness. This of course calls for immediate attention of state and non-state actors. As a matter of fact, we cannot wait for parents to land on this blog and read it to learn about what happens and why they should take full responsibility of their children. Most parents especially those from humble backgrounds from which these juveniles come have no access to such reading resources and neither do they even bother to pay attention. Therefore, parents ought to receive trainings on child responsibility from the aforementioned actors since we all know that charity begins at home.

Limits of perceiving masculinity as vulnerability

The question of what was new in the statistics of male juveniles got us reflect on the broader gender equality discourses and how, in some cases, these fail to know masculinity as vulnerability. For some gender activists and practitioners, it is just unthinkable to imagine men as vulnerable given the overwhelming patriarchal systems that privilege them. Such a discourse hardly interrogates patriarchy especially the ways in which patriarchal systems deprivilege men. Indeed, it is not uncommon for certain discourses to overlook or pay no attention to masculine experiences of weakness, pain or vulnerability. Bell hooks reflects extensively on some of the feminist approaches that fail to know men arguing that one of the tremendous failings of feminist theory and practice has been the lack of a concentrated study of boyhood, one that offers guidelines and strategies for alternative masculinity and ways of thinking about maleness. In effect dominant feminist discourses identifying males as universal perpetrators of gender oppression often close down the space where boys could be considered, where they could be deemed as worthy of rescue from patriarchal exploitation and oppression as were their female counterparts.

The ‘Boy child’ narrative

The statistics and the commentaries therefrom pointed to the popular narrative on the plight of the "boy child" which often prefaces the apparent neglect of experiences of boys and men in promoting gender equality. The very recent one is the Male members of parliament in Uganda launching an advocacy platform - Uganda men parliamentary association (UMEPA) - to advocate for the boychild. The narrative is one of the problematic debates in feminism and gender equality campaign in Uganda and beyond. It is problematic because of ambivalent sentiments it carries. On the one hand, the narrative makes an attempt to call for a critical reflection on the experiences of boys and men as gendered and as implicated in the gender power relations. In addressing the question of how vital it is to study men, especially in Africa, Ratele argues that the project of studying men is related to and supportive of radical gender transformation. For anyone concerned with injustice around the world, a study of men cannot be underlined by the project of subverting male power, of reworking hegemonic masculinities and gendered superiority. In such a world as we have, authenticating manhood or finding the lost key to being a true male cannot be the driving purpose of our investigation of masculinity. On the other hand, the narrative is at times framed in direct reaction to the progressive work on girls and women's empowerment, to the effect that in some cases, feminism is blamed for all the social ills that boys and men experience.  Engaging with such a narrative requires that we pay critical attention to men's experiences without necessary negating already existing efforts on women's empowerment.

Feminism revisited.

 

Whereas feminism is the fight to change the status of women and girls in society, this narrative has paid less attention to the problem causers but rather focused on the victim. From a critical point of view, less blame should definitely be put on these boys because they lack the information on empowerment into different empowering activities to build their capacities in different arenas and hence because of being idle due to the lack of access to education indulges them into such violent acts. Instead, this overwhelming number of males is a check on the gap in the work being done by feminist activists, ministries and other state actors that are gender grounded. What next for feminism in Uganda? Feminist activists should indeed think about focusing on males equally so that different problems in a given society are tackled from a rich gender lens. Another important element to consider is setting up age friendly activities that target young people since most of the programs look at Youth especially those in Universities who are past the age of juveniles.

Policy Direction

At policy level, the question of young men in remand homes requires a candid reflection and commitment not exclusively on increasing the number of remand homes and sourcing of funding for programs for remandees but rather to explore the root causes of this social problem. To end male pain and to respond effectively to male crisis, we need to name and politicize the problem – the patriarchal socialization that positions men and women in polarizing ways and believing that bearing pain and vulnerability is an acceptable form of being a man – as a gendered concern.

Rethinking our parenting models to new ways of socializing boys and girls to be human first and foremost, might lead us to understand why it is that males overwhelmingly find themselves at fault with the law. Only then can we reimagine possibilities of boyhood of difference.

Policy makers need to invest deliberately in nurturing alternative performances of masculinities that are not associated with aggression and risk-taking behaviours. These need to be identified and highlighted at both individual and institutional levels, as part of the process of facilitating change in dominant, risky patterns of masculinity.

Experiences encounters on the trail of Makerere University Student intern Supervision, August 2023. Amon Ashaba Mwiine, Lecturer, School of Women and Gender Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University amon.mwiine@mak.ac.ug amonmwiine@gmail.com and Elizabeth Atuheire, Makerere University, atuheirelisa19@gmail.com