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UGANDA: UEC Running a National Campaign against Domestic Violence

The campaign
is aimed at creating awareness about the problem of domestic violence and to
bring about behaviour change. “Our programme runs all year round but the
campaign is intensified during the four weeks of the Season of Advent, which
precede the celebration of Christmas, the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ,”
Says the chairman of the Conference Most Rev. John Baptist Odama.
Most Rev.
Odama who is also the Archbishop of Gulu who was giving a press statement in
regards to National Campaign on Domestic Violence, an initiative launched by
the conference in collaboration with the Irish Organizations Trocaire and Irish
Aid said that starting on 30th November 2014, which is the first
Sunday of Advent for this year, the conference shall have prayers for peace
recited at all Catholic parishes and sub-parishes in Uganda.
The
Archbishop encouraged Church leaders to preach against domestic violence in all
its forms. “Families nationwide are also requested to pray for peace and be
committed to individually taking responsibility to ending domestic violence,”
he said.
The theme that
has been chosen for this year’s campaign is, “SHARED DECISIONS, SHARED
DEVELOPMENT, SHARED HAPPINESS.” This is with the belief that families working
together and praying together will be violence-free.
“Let us join
our hands together to fight against the vice of domestic violence, so that our
families and communities may truly be places where the dignity of every person
is respected and where peace, joy, and love are experienced,” the Archbishop
said.
The main
campaign against domestic violence in Uganda by the Catholic Church has been
going on since 2010. Elsewhere in the country, similar campaigns championed by
civil society members have been going on in the country from as early as 2001.
Domestic
violence is typically hidden in the private domain where it is kept as a
shameful secret, forcing victims to suffer in silence. The campaign aims at creating
awareness about the problem bringing about behaviour change.
Source: Fr. Philip Odii, National Executive
Secretary for Social Communications UEC

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