Uganda has today joined the rest of the world to celebrate the World Intellectual property (IP) Day which annually falls on the 26th of April. The Day is intended to promote discussion on the role of intellectual property in encouraging innovation and creativity. The International Intellectual Property day is cerebrated on the 26th April but since it fell on Saturday, the celebrations in Uganda were pulled to Thursday 24th April, and were held at the National Theatre gardens in Kampala.

This year the focus has been put on Movies under the theme “Movies: A Global Passion”. This is aimed at uplifting the movies in the world, their role in a society and their impact on development in a country.

The cerebrations in Uganda under the theme “Emerging opportunities for Uganda” involved a match from the offices of the Uganda Registrations Services Bureau (URSB) to the National Theatre where Exhibitions, Speeches, and skits were performed. The celebrations were concluded with a show of a Ugandan Movie in the National Theatre Auditorium in the afternoon.

As a human rights organisation whose objective among others is to ensure that there is a

balance between Intellectual Property Rights and Public interest, we organized a press briefing on Intellectual Property on Wednesday 23rd, 2014 at Fairway Hotel in Kampala. This was in partnership with HEPs Uganda under the Coalition to Promote Access to Medicines and during the media briefing, 20 journalists were present as was the Director of Intellectual property at URSB, Ms Juliet Nassuna who officiated the briefing. To ensure a balance between Intellectual Property and public interest,  Ms Primah Kwagala, Programme Manager at CEHURD made a Key note presentation to the media on key issues to note on Intellectual Property, access to medicines and related Public Interest Concerns to note on World Intellectual Property Day.

During the exhibition at National theater, CEHURD focused on popularizing the Creative Commons (CC) licences the organisation has been working on and this was done by utilising the several IEC materials on Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines, that were show cased at the organisation booth where different people got a chance to interact on the public needs of Intellectual property enforcement.

Over the past two years the Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) has been running a fellowship program Mentoring Journalists in mainstream and digital media  in Uganda to report issues of Intellectual Property (IP) and Human Rights effectively. This program focused on social welfare aspects of IP including balancing Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) with Public Interest.

Given that background, CEHURD calls upon Concepts from IP media Fellows and Journalists in Mainstream and digital media to participate in a competitive bid to do investigative stories on the effect of Intellectual Property Rights and Public Interest concerns of Ugandans. Please find the CALL FOR CONCEPTS 

Activists in Kampala representing health, HIV/AIDS, human rights, and women’s organizations have today gathered in Kampala at the Supreme Court of Uganda as a panel of Justices begin hearing a Constitutional appeal against Constitutional Court’s ruling that it could not determine whether by mothers dying in child birth is a violation of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. The Constitutional Court in 2012 decided that matters brought before it by Center for health Human rights and others, did not fall into its mandate of interpreting the Constitution but a preserve of the Executive and Legislature. The Court termed this as a “Political question doctrine”.

Constitutional appeal No.1 of 2013 argues that the Constitutional court misapplied the “political question doctrine (doctrine of separation of powers) as this doctrine is one that cannot be applied in cases of violation of human rights.

“It’s such an old doctrine that prohibits one branch of government from interfering into work of another branch but this is not applicable to Uganda whose courts have an oversight role of checks and balances. It also doesn’t apply in cases of human rights violations like the one before court” Mulumba Moses, Executive Director, Center for Health, Human rights and Development (CEHURD)

The case, from which this appeal arises, Petition Number 16 of 2011, argued that by not providing essential medical commodities and health services to pregnant women, the Government is violating the Constitutional rights of Ugandans, including the right to health, the right to life, and the rights of women. The Petition highlights the case of Sylvia Nalubowa, a mother in Mityana and of Jennifer Anguko, a mother and District Councilor in Arua, both of whom died in childbirth. Members of the families of the deceased women are also present for the hearing.

Many reports of additional maternal deaths from across Uganda have come to light since the groundbreaking case was filed on 3 March 2011.16 women in Uganda die each day in childbirth!

“We believe justices of the Supreme Court have a role to play in preventing such deaths” Nakibuuka Noor, CEHURD.

As is the case with many other countries in the Africa region, Ugandan abortion law recognizes that abortion is lawful in given circumstances. Article 22(2) of the Ugandan Constitution in particular, provides that: “No person has the right to terminate the life of an unborn child except as may be authorized by law”. On its part, section 224 of the Penal Code provides for therapeutic abortion.

However, access to safe abortion services even within the boundaries of the law, continues to be a challenge. In 2008, the Ugandan Ministry of Health estimated that unsafe abortion-related mortality constituted up to 26 percent of maternal mortality and that for every woman who died from unsafe abortion, many more women suffered severe and permanent injuries.

This paper explores a human rights framework for implementing domestic abortion law in a way that maximizes access to safe, legal abortion in Uganda. The paper analyses the explicit and implicit provisions of the main laws that regulate abortion in Uganda, including the Constitution (article 22(2)); the Penal Code (sections 141-143; 224); common law; and the country’s reservations on article 14(2)(c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa. Read FULL DISCUSSION PAPER 

A new study conducted by Aparna Sundaram of the Guttmacher Institute and others, “Documenting the Individual and Household-Level Cost of Unsafe Abortion in Uganda,” indicated that Unsafe abortion often takes a considerable financial toll on Ugandan women and their families, resulting in a decline in economic stability and household well-being. Out of the women surveyed, 73% reported that they had lost wages, 60% their children had less to eat, were unable to attend school or both, and 34% experienced a decline in the economic stability of their household. The study furthers shows that on average, Ugandan women paid 59,600 (US$23) shillings for their abortion procedure.

Abortion is restricted in Uganda, but not prohibited as it is permitted to save the life and preserve the health of the pregnant woman, including the mental health. However, stigma, discrimination and misinformation mean most women in need of services as well as health care providers do not have correct information about the legal and environment.

The Center for Health Human Rights and Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Health held a national meeting on February 17 2014 to share data and research about the impact of unsafe abortion in Uganda, increase awareness about the legal and policy framework in Uganda, recruit additional public champions in the struggle to reduce maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion, and finally to agree on prevention interventions all partners; legal, service providers, government, religious leaders, among others can take to reduce maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion.

The meeting was attended by Hon. Minister of state for health in charge of primary health care Sarah Opendi, others officials from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Justice, Members of Parliament, Professional medical bodies, professional health workers, and community based organizations, religious leaders, cultural leaders, legal organizations, human rights organizations, and academics.

According to the executive director of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, Mr. Moses Mulumba, these findings make clear that more must be done to reduce unintended pregnancy by ensuring that Ugandan women have access to family planning services. Mr Mulumba, added that, accurate information on contraception and high-quality services must be made available as a matter of constitutionally guaranteed rights to allow women to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. Young and poor women in particular need access to these services.

Hon. Sarah Opendi was concerned by the fact that abortion is third on the list of major killers of pregnant mothers after haemorrhage and infections. She added that, there are lots of media reports about girls carrying out abortions leaving a question of what happens to men who impregnate these girls. Hon. Opendi also said, reducing maternal mortality is very important as this is also well reflected in the millennium development goals (MDG 5).

By the end of the meeting, participants had agreed that it is important to have a well-defined legal framework on abortion, to have research findings taken back to communities for members of the communities to know exactly how the situation is, Ministry of Health to get legal assistance from members of parliament on how to go about the existing guidelines, to increase sensitization of the existing guidelines on safe abortion, and to have the unmet need of contraception reduced