What Price - Bride Price? full documentary

in a small village in Lyra in northern Uganda a joyous celebration is about to take place a bride has come back to her home village to partake in probably the most important ritual in a Ugandan marriage the introduction or Kwanzaa the whole village is invited to witness this colorful and vibrant spectacle many cultural dances are proudly performed and many gifts are exchanged between all the members of the two families but he knew ganden weddings take place without a certain degree of negotiation ranging from simple requests with the bride's well-being to hard-fought demands for livestock and cash for the bride's extended family so even while the celebrations continue the bride price or at least the livestock part of it needs careful inspection then in a nearby house the families meet to check that a list of demands have been met amid the smiles there is often a tension that runs through the meetings has the price demanded for the bride being paid in full lists are taped and careful records are kept envelopes of money are passed from hand to hand once the checks are over the groom is formally introduced and welcome to the gathered guests and the party can really begin in many cases it ends there and the couple go on to lead happy and healthy lives but in a striking and worryingly large number of cases bride price can lead on to misery poverty submission and violence which leads us to ask the urgent question what price bride price we traveled around Uganda to try to get a picture of what bride-price has come to mean throughout the country and the effects it has we first spoke to Florence she lives in a village close to Tohru in eastern Uganda one of the poorest parts of the country she was 17 when she first got married and her husband was a neighbor her parents asked for three cows and three goats for her but soon after their marriage his character started to change atanga Kaka funda cow hakuna Bacchus Randy Kohaku night and a kapa haka Vancouver male occupant a rebellious Volante Singhania one from Baccarat area Mobile's appointee bernanke sent a to piranha st. I sent a did Yaga our sovereign Osaka Vincentian of macaques Sonam the Romani gonna gonna gonna come Vasa Michigan Madonnina st. the ankle ow portage Florence tried to leave home and go back to her father's house but her father said he had no cows to pay the refund usually when cows or goats are paid in exchange for a bride the livestock is distributed among the extended family so if an angry husband comes looking for their return it's nearly always impossible to get them back so Florence went back and the beatings continued eventually despite having children she tried to kill herself Ramona I woke up and I can't say I wanna Wanga but the curtain the cocoon for now knock me off my own finger sitting on our couch I'm Inaba but she was rescued by her neighbors and then she heard about me fou me who helped women suffering from domestic abuse yeah you mean on walkway yeah I do I feel very quaint aunty there are now once they talk of office in a quiet van I'm sad that too so I figure I'll acquaint aunty well cover of a wife NT o Musa on guard acquaintance TD Jim I Sookie I give my mother gone Gomorrah I move I immediately me mad about moving Teddy how no no no honey brawny I'm lucky Florence is a survivor but is not enthusiastic about the prospect of marrying again Kenneth Kokua is a legal practitioner in Kampala and of considerable standing he has a strong interest in human rights and was one of the lawyers who successfully argued against the proposal to outlaw bride-price last time it came before the Constitutional Court what do you call bride-price are sell in the in the in the Dixon Oaks for Dixon it is described as the practice of giving Oh gifts for your bride in primitive societies so in the fastest says you have to describe your balance as primitive and then and then also you have to describe bride price as as a sale because you can't have a price unless you have a commodity you have a buyer and your service seller there is no single tribe in Uganda in which the word bride price or whatever the car to add for for for the gifts that are given on traditional weddings that has anything near if translated that would be equivalent to a they sell or Apaches so so I don't see how bright price then can be because the bride is neither sword no boat is Kenneth Kaku ruse argument mainly a semantic one the dictionary of the Luna and Cole a tribe which Kenneth hails from indicates that the exchange is a price so what do the words really mean breakfast could Oh googa googa is the the mowing of a cow so it is that they have brought cows home so that is what but it is not about bright and it's not about price the family of the groom comes to the family of the bride and asks for her hand in marriage the father said yes we will do that then you negotiate how much how many cows 20 what all those negotiations that you saw and then you end these cows are used to buy their sort and used to buy items that the guard needs in a home kitchen dining sitting room bedroom bathroom her clothes everything so because she has transformed from being a girl to being a woman it seems that Kenneth's argument works perfectly well for those middle-class Ugandan Zin good jobs in the cities who can afford to give the cows straight back to the married couple who don't see the acquisition of cows via the selling of a bride as a valuable source of income we moved on to meet Theresa from Eastern Uganda Torres's problems are largely in the past but the story of her marriage has left many scars she was forced by her step brothers and stepmother to marry when she was just 15 paka Waukesha noumena corny nanine Yakko take what little pagani it will do no it wasn't Nick - Nick Monroe kidding you amaretto me Bordeaux question chalo chalo Reilly Masha Teresa suffered particularly harsh beatings at the hands of her violent husband all based upon the fact that she was somehow owned I'm gonna get mean bitter shaft and inertia Monica oh yeah Anka adalah tiga Akunyili washer it Dan I'll immolate too mad once watch the minute a toga chick don't go measure go go go Tim Jaco go Jim oh now II give my good yeah get in here quick a menage a cappella I wanna pinch it in me I wanna bang her a penny man Kentucky turbo man then I could win you get my damn homie which I call me up with Jack or Teresa eventually managed to leave her marriage and her husband immediately demanded his bride price back even though he forced her to leave her first children behind after experiencing so much hardship - Reza has since become an advocate for women in similar situations and is determined that her daughter does not suffer in the same way to fool your for Gemma my journey achamma we do for chimp I'd imagine your charm Rock Okayama well Wiggy why do you engage anyone you owe me no bed in my bed Manya Donna LaDonna mu GUI bata IEA and she has been left with a very negative view of the benefits of marriage you make you a more awkward Tim Moran I wanted long according it in the fire and linking Elvira can it be right that so many women are now being discouraged from thinking of marriage as a positive step that they are starting to feel that they are better off on their own back in Kampala we visited a member of the court of appeal of Uganda mr. justice Steven Karuma he doesn't fully accept the concept of a price for a bride but when it comes to the potential demands for refund he seems quite clear if I give the gift things was so I don't as of right think I should come and say I give you a gift you bring it back and around of course that as the problem of looking after the girls chatter was chicken that you would take to market and you say meeting by ionia give me Saturdays and and you take this and I objected to that it seems difficult to accept the concept of a refund without also accepting the existence of a sale and as with many of the legal professionals we spoke to just discover ma separates domestic violence from bride price to me that is just another piece of evidence of a criminal mind who wants to unleash violence simply because he thinks is more masculine do you know they are the poor girls we can't rest of it but maybe in terms of trying to put up a defense which many people may buy and I said but after all I paid account and therefore this is my property perhaps one of the reasons why women can so easily be viewed as commodities in Uganda is that polygamy is still perfectly legal we met Orissa a local politician and his brother or we know Arisa has just married his fifth wife Magdalene ah Camus what are the advantages of so many wives when it comes to the number of children I get more when I have more women when it comes to development when we go to the garden we dig more area but oh we know or recess brother he's a one-woman man paid three heads of cattle and two books when I wanted to add more they told me a very man helped our daughters Faris nicely don't mind what is the remaining is you're talking and that's how I'm comfortable on the other hand Orissa hasn't yet paid for all his wives or rhesus father paid for his first wife and he has yet to pay for wives two to four and he seems to have come up with the kind of higher purchase agreement for his fifth my number five that one out paid equality deposited not a fully preheat I will be posted one cow and the three goods of rezoned the father approached me about what it make what I say I say give me time this time I'm going to clear it Horace's mother who is a very healthy eighty eight is one of seven wives and is a staunch defender of the culture gonna be a kick with mediocre what's angle returning or madoka Park area neo taco water pitcher no c'mere daiquiri the pitcher that cookie made pollution when filling out the canoe on mainly challenge yet the young local tree my water would and bright price for her is clearly not a gift it's a payment whining at the peanutty Ramallah over document longs for a metre boom yagi-chan rocking aspirin Joker 'aka yock Abbas angle and canavero Conan at ndu Amidala much much ammo Jaya parents demand payment because when a girl marries and leaves home to settle with her in-laws her family loses the value of her labor the husband's family gains it we moved on to meet immaculate who was staying in a myth for me refuge she originally married in Kazakh with a bride price of two cows now 29 she had just run away from her husband who mistreated her and who has since been arrested and held in - RORO jail no matter where they come amid the economy I shall now walk it in your not commit of the matter but you may be hard to chop away at the end I mean you water local you might owe me and I better don't turn your issue in American okay Tim lady you got to come out of it okay kugali Accardo oh yeah look at the patient i watch her mama did you feel okay better can you come in a little cuz i watch it you want to go watch you cook it down Jerrica done dinner yeah I mean your Monday Larry Oh God bout to go to the Paragon bow my delario to cut the technically again oh my god okay - we actually blue mat apart I got a pencil - oh God - meconium a here - whew ah coughing that kiddo together your Merapi tapping a toccata move from a tasty soup Jamie evaluated wanna go to kokino to walk left outta me off wanting to help ensure she clung on to the marriage because of her children Todd and I doubt that he can I wore something like even though my dog opee Schmid yeah Raja Rani caimito we look at that to anything the maker but the two men's continued and one night after she tried to go to sleep he came after her no don't wanna calm eyes don't wanna completely Toby no you need it okay so good up to fifty tomono kappa Lonnie took a bit you know my Kananga top where am i dr. Warren come back oka elevator new Meredith marry me no go get Oh Minnie short we're not fair I'm an attorney mom I'm too bad to be you know I'm you know they look beautiful his attempts to burn beat and strangle her with a last drawer for immaculate finally she arrived at the Megumi shelter in search of refuge but even here her husband would not leave her in peace nuta declined comment - alphabet oka special show Candela make sure show because here when I show you SEL my mind to go I walk facial to be no car to watch her watch money Nakata you know mean a material car alone commercially a little nanoka to watch my baby no paint John help anyone a not a shark named Michelle never a judge must I said my Shore top 11 illuminated wash running in Belushi and but crystal you know call me Annie Minami no no para the police were called and arrested her husband but she is still incredibly worried about her children who were stuck at her husband's home whilst he is in jail they have no support money once yesterday autocratic I might now cause I thought up thought about it but no better to order video you may consider that at least 60% of domestic violence cases reported to them a bride price related we spoke to Saleh me who works at me for me she never ceases to be surprised by the reasons men give for beating women most will say like from the east most of them I really going to say I'm beating my cows from the north where come from they're going to say it's a sign of love apparently this is what offhand the women say if your husband doesn't beat you it means he's seen another woman so everything you do is okay with him because he'd seen some woman out there well while on the other hand if he beats you up it means you maybe he's noticed that you've annoyed him or you've done something to the children that he doesn't like so he's he has interest in your life I mean what you're doing so he beats you as a sign of love others think other men beats women because I mean he's the boss in the home that's what he knows he's the head of the family he has a right to discipline and then for some that excuse is the Bible woman be submissive to your husband so if she's not being submissive how do you get her to listen he talk we have seen that educated men in Uganda don't necessarily agree that bride price should be paid but Ptolemy thinks that they still see women as subordinate to them even though educated men will pay a bride price but you will still hear comments the language they use when referring to their wife it's very derogatory and it it still puts them on the same pedals to as the man in the village who thinks he's actually exchanging something for his wife and it's not an appreciation people men will say oh no women Swami's will say oh it's a see Asian men will sell it is actually not an appreciation I am paying for your daughter although they will not say it out loud because they know it sounds bad but that's - the bottom line that is it but perhaps occasionally women play their own role in perpetuating the practice because there are women out there who say I mean you haven't paid for me you you don't have the right to hit me so men will also be pushed to pay because they know it shows actually on you that exchange bride-price actually makes people seem more together than even the church wedding when women have been married in church and no bride price has been paid to their families they actually also say it you haven't given my family anything you can't push me around you can't whether this union is before God or before Allah you can't push me around but if my price has been exchanged that is what makes the difference I've come across so many women who say if a man can't afford to pay bride price he's not man enough if he cannot afford to pay the eight cows my mother is asking for she's not man enough you will not be able to take care of me in the marriage I've come across girls who say if the man cannot pay what he is being asked to pay for now then where is my future with this month we are going to starve Allah make us a human most for instance though the time we were at an exhibition and there were a number of members of Parliament's but the first thing they told us was uniformly many of the people who don't want to get married I have paid bride price I paid bread price for my wife how am I going to sit there and not get rich don't get scows yet I have five daughters it doesn't make sense now if a member of parliament has such an attitude I'm sorry to say such a low is really going to take a really long time it seems clear that bride-price is being used not as a gift as some people would have you believe but as a commercial transaction the young bride has become a valuable commodity who can bring a valuable source of income to an impoverished rural family with current market prices at approximately five hundred thousand shillings for a hundred and ninety dollars for a cow it's no wonder that we see ever younger girls being married off Juliet is only 14 one day she came home from school and found strangers in the house Jenny no it's not widely seen are immense damage at least I was / - attack - watch the same canal Juliet is clear why she thinks she was about to be married off she found out later that her potential husband had offered 1 million shillings for her she managed to hear about me fou me and is currently taking shelter in one of the refugees whilst fair she helps entertain the children of mothers who have come escaping domestic violence Eunice has a similar story we found her having just arrived at sera T police station seeking help she was sent off to be married by her uncle's as soon as her father had died she wasn't attending school and they decided she would be a useful source of income almost immediately she was forced to go to her new husband's home a man she had never met rusty never seen you I don't know girl is worth future energy needs to be searched in your battery again not to cover the reunion and you have another topic of the chapters and never again on looking all the way no Papa Tunde Rudo guna DNA Angus tonicity a beautiful see to money but I don't want my bird dinner estuvo when you Bui vien in your caramel popcorn fortunately for Eunice her husband did not force himself upon her even though he had paid a lot of money in bride price however he has made it very clear that he wants his bride price back with her relatives insisting that she either returns to her husband or marries someone else who is in a position to refund she is currently condemned to a life on the run while we were at the police station we took the opportunity to chat with the all-female staff and they have also reached their own conclusions about whether bride price should ever be refunded when women leave abusive relationships it can have severe repercussions for their families open dia Jays daughter left her husband after just a few months he would do no work himself and treated her like a slave she was forced to do everything for her family eventually she felt she had to leave yeah if I marry into a valley be no tomorrow papa yeah come Italy so I should only millimeter see me Annie now old patio open dia Jays daughter found a new husband with whom she had children but her first husband continued to insist on a return of his bride price Giovanni Agnelli quantumatic appear in the year in market you re Balaji era World War II doggy the new husband had no money so the burden continued to fall on a pen dear Jay he was arrested and whilst in jail mainly due to bribes made by the first husband he was forced to sign a document agreeing a refund of the bride price tearing up yoga Meno emit an idea kids sing I am at work at the end so Kenya I mean your food acquara - odana theoretical could overpower Gauri or having been beaten into signing the document he was released but as soon as he left the prison he went on the run because he knew he could not afford the refund Somali Malita Malita swatted take when you enter in Oaxaca a room where a or Nucor so much human angle gear material and until very very fat Zico sabudana cavalry in delaria dick was that way Korea Morocco a c'mon minamino can you move a little take take Street Amin Amin Sonny rangamma Palomar war go DC police a Roberto pachuco circle poka gotta encourage any karaoke together a candy materi meeting the new ojousama akane a linear yo uniformly own anger hookah the Kibaki Nalini Auriga junior package or junkeum Aparna bhaji we sandwich motto again there are precious few who are prepared to speak out about bride-price but Miriam ottenby is a former minister responsible for ethics and fighting corruption and a code draftee of Uganda's 1995 Constitution she is convinced that the persistence of bride-price is because women are not being recognized for what they are both men and women do not know who a woman is and that is the reason why they treat her as a second-class citizen or as rubbish or something like that because they do not know that women are for human beings in their own right so that it does not know the potential Italians the wisdom of women and it does not know that the denial of their ability to realize their potential is the denial of Uganda's the development regarding sheriff's furnaces who are not educated like me who knows that are variable without attachment to bride price they still attach their value to bright price I remember very very well when I was growing up I had a not my father sister she used to be buttered and evaluated by I think bug bug born husband and many times you'd run home to come for rescue and after three or four days making my father unfortunately Dan Egan is fancy you are useless yes that's why you are husband just you away and my aunt and I was young about seven years she would pitifully say I'm not useless I produced sons for this man I'm not useless I produce I brought in bright price in this home and you know that answer really struck me it's one of the things that inspired me to go and fight against gender inequality because it showed me that my poor aunt and of course generally many women whom I was think suffering in the village knew that they had no value but they owned a variable when they bring in bride price and when they produce sons many times when people talk to me of this is our culture I tell them we cannot afford to live in a cultural Museum I mean customs there are so many customs and cultures in this country ranging from Oh deferring from current culture to culture tribal tribe which we are harmful and the enjoyment and the undermine their humanity but the biggest asset a weapon that will help us decisively do away with the bride price will be empowerment of our people in terms of formal education where both men and women get education they go to school they get their degrees they get jobs and they work and therefore they have a say in this country there is nobody who doesn't know that domestic violence cuts across every ethnicity group every culture every generation every educational level let me tell you some women members of parliament in uganda are battered they are thrown out of their homes they are tortured they suffer who doesn't know about domestic violence the vice-president our former vice president as well but when she was so tired she went outside publically she declared this aura nation that as Manas in buttering up and she's bad and she quit in November did my second son went to Mary I told those before me I don't like a bright place and I told him you know I don't want it so when they came we negotiated and they said ok no no no no no bright press press in down the road they said ok we want the following gifts so many many many many things too much we said but a this is like turning if you break price and my husband and I put a foot down we said no we are not going to take that and in the end we said if you insist share custody the marriage but eventually we got together and we came to an understanding and and the bride please never we never give bride price so many people when they stick to their guts they can go away with me on our journey through Uganda we met some very brave and strong women who have endured and come through to a brighter future Doreen is one of them her story has a happier ending than most after the by now familiar story of violence and rejection she lived on the streets for a while begging for food for her children but she actively tried to find herself another husband and this time she seems to have found a good man PTA marijuana purapura lo Lieh teaching I'm actually awake Akira erotic Budokan era birth with a career mode suitable imagine a big pyramid through the Kawana deco Chatterley atomy penury bhujangi no curriculum okay go chatty there karate mid where are you from committee ready pull out your fists no quietly come inna Oh Mia Vienna didn't yet we're putting that around however her husband still clings on to some traditional values if you have not paid a bride price is just like you're staying with that woman illegally but when you present that bride price then it is it is illegal now that that is your wife her husband may be a man with a more modern outlook but he is fairly traditional when it comes to knowing who is in the right most cases she could be on their own and you know with the women maybe if they are tired that's when they can they can just drop wires anyhow then for us husbands you have to see leave happy but I'm always you know I'm married to me according to my element because I hate beatings and this but I can I can hit beating but I can rebuke I can rebuke and that is where ends very few women would feel empowered to challenge him in kampala we went to another member of the Court of Appeal mr. justice amis to Anoma junior on a tribunal of five judges including two women he was the only one who stood for making bride-price illegal in Uganda originally it was supposed to mean security for good behavior if I marry your daughter I am supposed to give you something to ensure that I look after her we're also it had the opposite effect of ensuring that the girl will behave well during the continuance of the marriage but as of now it does not mean that anymore it is a price that you pay in order to get access it's somebody's daughter and it is refundable and I don't think it is a good thing any more gifts yes the white perfect okay I've written a judgement in the constitutional petition in which I have a dude that gives commendable acceptable but the bride price in which parents demand and get paid and where her fund is expected when the manager breaks down to me I don't think it is no wrong I just find justice to Anoma journey and Kenneth Kaku both come from the west of Uganda but their interpretations are quite different Kaoru says that his culture proves that bride price does not exist however justice twin emerging is convinced that it certainly persists throughout the rest of Uganda in the judgement have talked about cocoon made a submission there before we make we made a judgement I don't agree with him though we come from almost a similar collection he's not being realistic that is what used to happen very many years ago but today it has become bright price in English English sense you see they are selling justice to enormous journey even suspects that Kenneth kokoroo is not being entirely honest about what goes on in their own culture I undercover who come from the same culture we might have from them they matter from us I know what they do I know that at the moment even when they exchange gifts that is for public consumption behind doors bread bread price has been in many cases by the price has been paid today in educated people most people like me I don't think I would multiply the price of my daughter but I would rather reject the gifts from my perspective sons-in-law but I would not a demand for bread prices today we asked justice to enormous journey about the reasons why bride price still exists he feels certain that the problem begins with education general speaking men don't like to educate their daughters to say beyond the farm six because by that time the girls are beginning to grow some breasts and this high time that bread price came in because they have been waiting for it so they don't want to keep them at school after from six they know how to write their names and read so they can now wait for the next man who will bring the animal you see if you are I am the quicker I want it and therefore the more easily I want to remove the girl from school so that I can get it as quickly as possible in the recent court of appeal four out of five judges rejected a change in the law because they said that the existence of bride-price had not been proved to their satisfaction my difference with them is that I know I'm a garden I've lived in Lugano society our practice law in Ueno society and I know and he doesn't have to be proved it to me that bright price is taking place and that's why I said bright price as I understand it to me I said should be declared unconstitutional bright price has been a part of Ugandan culture for many years but maybe attitudes are beginning to change laka boom ba-ba-boom ba-ba Jacob identically an attorney cocoon Cova to Ahmad I think incentive maka ganging guns Domini Nirvana Rangi covering from Karachi my father thinks the appreciation you can give him is take care of his daughter well there's nothing you're going to give him to replace me in the home for instance I would love to hang around with him and tell stories no cow is going to replace that will be departing your condominium your annually sangani Chandra food worker a bit of pain you can waiter water down some stucco you could be pulling wanama in yahoo i get the new memory again jo i any new Ameritech in yemeni not obeyed o ki she was a bit of Pinot it t more than a man yoni kini some more oj you give a gift it is a gift don't come for it because things are going so if if men know they're not going to get it back they're going to be so against paying it in the first place you can't take somebody's daughter produced and children by staying with her for taya's then you expel and you expect a refund it's in a character in a nested ization however much you might even want quality primitive it doesn't make sense it used to be a useful and beneficial culture but because it has been abused and manipulated it promotes domestic violence and in fact it has lost its value and it should be abandoned if you ganda is to move forward as a leading African nation it cannot afford to treat half its population as commodities isn't it time that women were not bought and sold that weddings were not places of transaction many people in Uganda continued to insist that bride price is merely a gift but they seem to be concentrating on only those people in the country who can afford to see bride price as a gift at village level brides continue to be treated as little better than cows born sold or haggled over a means of pacifying demanding relatives and like cows they can be beaten and commanded and sometimes even destroyed a continuing evil in this country is the persistent belief that bride price could and should be refunded as long as this continues women will never be safe from the sometimes violent winds of men who can still marry as many wives as they like who can throw women they are tired of out onto the streets and who can ignore all the work love and nurturing that women provide if uganda is to be a modern relevant and important african country then its women and its brides should be seen as treasures to be cherished companions to be loved and above all held equal with men in education and treatment let us by all means celebrate marriage and exchange gifts but such gifts should never be seen as payment and should never be demanded you

Channel: theMifumiProject

Views: 1,064,300

Rating: 4.5657144 out of 5

Keywords: Bride price, uganda, lobola, cultural practice, bride wealth, dowry, child marriage, domestic violence, poverty, MIFUMI, Atuki, Brill, Matembe, human rights

Id: Gmp4ogS1UH8

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2013