RAPID CARE ANALYSIS (RCA) & CARE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY (CHS) IN LAMWO DISTRICT, ACHOLI SUB-REGION, NORTHERN UGANDA
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FINAL REPORT
Prepared and Submitted to:
The Programme Coordinator
Women’s Rights and Access to Justice
Uganda Women's Network (UWONET)
Plot 710, Bbuya Kigoowa, Mirembe Close, Ntinda
Email: , ;
Consulting Team:
Pascal Odoch, Ph.D. (Planning & Evaluation Expert/Team Leader)
Agnes Kabajuni (Gender & Rights Expert)
Jimrex Byamugisha (Chief Statistician/M&E Expert)
PART TWO
PART 2 - THE RAPID CARE ANALYSIS (RCA)
2.1 Care Work Recognition
2.1.1 Care Categories
The universal care categories that guided the RCA sessions in the Acholi context is summarised in the Table below:
Table1: Care Categories
Domestic work / Direct care of persons· Meal preparation
· Fetching safe water
· Fetching wood fuel (energy)
· Clean space
· Clean clothes / · Child care
· Care of dependent adults
· Care of community members
Prior to engaging each of the four RCA sessions, participants were guided by the facilitators in qualifying individual contributions from members on what is and what is not care work in their communities. The following common understanding on unpaid care work and what is not care work in Acholi context is summarised in the Tables 2 and 3 below:
Table 2: Common Acholi understanding of care work
Understanding of unpaid care work / Understanding of what is not care work· Beneficial for the family or community
· Intention to be beneficial for family or community
· Physical or moral involvement
· Love and labour
· Unpaid
· Usually done by women
· Usually not recognised/ visible
· Usually not valued much
· Usually performed as part of routine work
· Fits categories of care work: Meal Preparation, Water, Energy, Clean Space, Clean Clothes, Child Care, Care of Dependent Adults, Care of Community Members. / o Maintenance (Repairing a bicycle; Building a house)
· Looking after animals
o Subsistence farming (Collecting food for selling
o Planting food to eat/ Starting a kitchen garden
· Commercial farming
o Funding care work (Giving money to buy clothes; Giving money to buy jerry-cans; Giving money to buy paraffin; Giving money to buy food; Paying school fees or bills)
· Attending community meetings
· Socializing for leisure
Further into the RCA process, facilitators qualified the known care activities in Acholi society under domestic and direct care work as summarised in the Table below.
Table 3: Examples for unpaid care work in the Acholi context
Domestic Work / Direct Care of Persons· Meal preparation
· Buying food
· Collecting food for immediate consumption of the family
· Preparing food: grinding, pounding, peeling, chopping
· Cooking
· Serving food
· Waiting for husband to finish food
· Washing plates
· Keeping food
· Warming food
· Water
· Fetching water
· Cleaning the well
· Boiling water for husband to bathe
· Boiling drinking water
· Energy
· Collecting firewood
· Cutting the trees
· Splitting firewood
· Lightening the fire
· Maintaining the fire
· Buying the paraffin
· Lightening the lamps
· Cleaning the lamps
· Charging the solar
· Clean space
· Cleaning the house
· Sweeping the house
· Sweeping the compound
· Mopping
· Smearing the floor
· Beautifying the house
· Landscaping
· Tidying/ organizing the house or compound
· Laying or setting the bed
· Clean clothes
· Washing clothes
· Mending clothes
· Ironing clothes
· Buying clothes / · Child care
· Taking the children to school
· Taking children to the hospital
· Treating the children
· Caring for a sick child
· Shaving/ braiding children’s hair
· Bathing children
· Feeding children
· Playing with children
· Teaching the children
· Emotional support
· Supervision/ Being responsible
· Care of dependent adults
· Taking care of the ill/ disabled/ vulnerable
· Praying
· Taking people the hospital
· Taking food to the hospital
· Help ill relative in the garden/ home
· Providing emotional support/ listening to someone’s problems
· Care of community members
· Carry things for elderly
· Cleaning the communal well
· Looking after/ supervising someone else’s children
· Unpaid help to cook for/ prepare funerals/ weddings
· Settling disputes/ counseling
· Collective action that benefits the community directly
2.1.2 Tools used to conduct the RCA Sessions
The tools used in the RCA included:
a) Relationship Diagram that showed the rationale of why someone is important in another’s life,
b) Time Allocation Chart which spelt out the time spent by a participant within 24 hours;
c) Weekly Main Activity and Simultaneous Activity Chart which totals hours spent on each activity and the corresponding average,
d) Pre-conflict-during-conflict-after-conflict chart which shows the trend in care work before, during, and after the 20 year old conflict,
e) Seasonal Calendar Table which enabled participants to identify and brainstorm on why certain months have intense care work than others,
f) Problematic Care Rating Matrix which identified the most difficult to do care work and with some reasons,
g) Care Reduction Options Table which identified the ways available that are socially acceptable and have impact when implemented,
h) Care Reduction and Redistribution Matrix which asked the questions why any actor was the best option in addressing the particular care work solution.
2.1.3 Caring for People
Experience with RCA sessions in all the four Study areas showed that both the ordinary community residents and leaders recognized that wives did more unpaid care work compared to their husbands. They attributed this to the roles they are ascribed by society. Community linked wives unpaid care work such as washing clothes, cooking, fetching firewood and collecting water with their role as mothers which involves caring for children and having to put up with most of the family welfare requirements that necessitates caring. In RCA session for ordinary community in Muddu North West Village in Palabek Ogilli sub-county, a community asserted that only barren wives care less while in Lokung Trading Centre Leaders’ RCA session, it was revealed that husbands are not drawn to care work because they have historically regarded care work as wives’ work. Besides, the husbands have reinforced this traditional perspective by making time to be away from home most times and preoccupied themselves with drinking alcohol.
In the one-day exercise carried out in all the four RCA sessions, it was revealing that wives did more work than their husbands. In addition to doing all the unpaid care work, wives did all the unpaid farm work including helping their husbands in gardens meant for cash crops such as simsim (sesame crop). Wives and husbands in the RCA sessions recognized the glaring fact that wives spend much their time in unpaid care work as well as unpaid farm work. However the general understanding remained that this was petty work that husbands felt unworthy to involve themselves in.
At the beginning of most of the RCA sessions, the husbands considered care work as being petty (not such a big deal) and that is how it has been relegated to the wives. The view held by husbands is to focus on commercial and income generating activities that in their view is critical for sustenance of the households. This attitude demonstrated the value communities put on unpaid care work especially as it was not bringing monetary gain to the household and was time consuming. Husbands treasure their time spent socializing and drinking as part of their role as household heads.
However, after going through the individual one-day recall exercise the subsequent ranking, both husbands and wives also recognised that care work was labour intensive and mostly left to wives. Most interesting about one-day and the subsequent ranking exercise was the consensus between both the husbands and wives (the ordinary community residents and leaders) in the RCA groups. The one-day recall exercise brought out this vividly after calculating average time spent on care work and this allowed a very healthy discussion between husbands and wives. With wives observing that they in addition to care work they do unpaid farm work first in support of their husbands (especially commercial gardens of sesame crop that was singled out) and then for domestic unpaid work like gardening for food security in the home. Husbands also agreed that some husbands especially the young ones spend more time outside their homes and did not support their wives with care work. These views were reiterated by participants as below:
“. . . Wives don’t move to other people’s places and men have time to rest when they are back from the garden[1] . . . Can you imagine the wife gets busy cooking when they are from the garden together with the husband. . .?” Woman participant, RCA session at Alaa Primary School, Padibe East Sub-county.
“. . . Generally we were supposed to share this care work with the husband but they always say it is wives’ work . . . and that wives who want their husbands to do such work are the ones who want to compete with the men . . . So you will do the care work for the sake of your children. . .” Woman participant, RCA session at Muddu North West Village, Palabek Ogilli Sub-county.
In Padibe East (Leaders) RCA session, for instance, the participants identified cooking as the most problematic care work. The understanding was that it was the most detailed because within its chain are many other sub-activities such as splitting firewood, gathering food, lighting fire, fetching water and most of all these activities are carried out simultaneously with other care work like looking after small children; some parts of cooking process require added presence and attention hence the time burden on this particular care work.
2.1.3.1 Type of people who care more and those who care less
In an RCA session with the Leaders (Lokung Trading Centre), it was established that adult wives (the wife in the household and the girls that are about to get married-off), do care work much more than any other category of persons at the household. These adult wives even prepare meals and share beyond the households, to burials of extended families in their communities.
The only exceptions to adult wives getting involved in care work is when the adult wives are away from the household as was attested to by one male RCA participant:
“. . . I can only cook for my children when my wife goes to the garden or on a visit to her parents . . . I consider this temporary arrangement . . . Not a routine. . . ” Middle aged male participant, RCA session at Alaa Primary School, Padibe East Sub-county.
“ . . . Long ago people used to regard cooking as the duty performed by women . . . Even grinding grain is only done by a husband only when his wife is not at home for extended duration. . . Even then good wives make sure there is enough flour for making bread at the store when they know they will be away from home for extended period . . .” Male participant, Muddu North West Village, Palabek Ogilli Sub-county.
2.1.3.2 When some people care more than others
The RCA ordinary people in Muddu North West Village reasoned that wives care for people more than husbands. The Rwot of the area further explained that this is social construction of the Acholi people adding wives carry children for nine months so when they see someone suffering they are more concerned. Wives feel every one’s pain much more than the husbands do. The RCA Leaders’ participants in Lokung Trading Centre identified that wives care most for the reasons that are summarized Box 1 below:
Box 1: Summary of perceptions of why wives do more care work than husbands
· God made wives as caring people; they are born to & have a heart to care for others.
· The wives deliver the babies. They are regarded as the custodian of the family and are empowered by the husbands to ensure the associated activities with upbringing children are promptly performed by the woman.
· The wife is forgiving and caring by nature; they cannot wait and see care work activities not being performed to go by unattended to at the household. This is how they end up performing multiple care tasks concurrently.
· Husbands do not care a lot because they a) are pre-occupied with drinking most of the time with their fellow men; it is unusual to find wives drinking at the level of their husbands in Acholi society. This is how they resigned from part-taking in care work responsibilities to assist their wives; b) have a tendency of seeing care work as wives’ work; and c) the husbands most often don’t stay at home where and when care activities sprout out demanding prompt care attention.
2.1.4 Gender implication of wives doing much more care work
Public engagement including political participation: Care work as can be observed across accessing safe water, basic health and education, to food security for the homestead is intense and demanding, yet someone has to perform them. The noticeable absence of wives in public dialogues like their male counterparts is to a large measure linked to their necessity to care for the household and at times communities, at the expense of their active public participation. It is normal occurrence for elderly wives to stream home from SAGE meetings, VSLAs, etc to take care of issues at home while their husbands continue and stay up to end of sessions.
Social empowerment (in addition to social norms): The unfavourable conditions in which wives find themselves are mainly perpetuated by cultural restrictions, marginalisation in decision making, and ignorance due to limited exposure and education. The wives are most times confined to the household due to the household members’ own expectations that the woman is to perform all manner of care work. Few social empowerment measures that provide windows of social empowerment for the wives include the wives’ choir group in the churches and their participation in regular meetings of Village Savings and Loans Associations where such wives are bona-fide members.