“They arrested me for loving a schoolgirl”: Ethnography, HIV, and a feminist assessment of the age of consent law as a gender-based structural intervention in Uganda

Abstract

In 1990 women’s rights activists in Uganda successfully lobbied to amend the Defilement Law, raising the age of sexual consent for adolescent females from fourteen to eighteen years old and increasing the maximum sentence to death by hanging. The amendment can be considered a macro-level intervention designed to address the social and health inequalities affecting young women and girls, particularly their disproportionately high rate of HIV as compared to their male counterparts. While the intention of the law and aggressive campaign was to prosecute “sugar daddies” and “pedophiles,” the average age of men charged with defilement was twenty-one years old and many were believe to be “boyfriends” in consensual sexual liaisons with the alleged victims. This article uses court records, case studies, and longitudinal ethnographic data gathered in central-eastern Uganda to examine the impact of the age of consent law at national and local levels, and specifically what the disjunctures between national intentions and local uses reveal about conflicting views about the sexual privilege and rights. I argue that existing class, gender, and age hierarchies have shaped how the Defilement Law has been applied locally, such that despite the stated aim of “protecting” young women, the law reinstates patriarchal privilege (especially against men of lower social class) while simultaneously increasing the regulation of adolescent female sexuality and undermining their autonomy. This paper demonstrates how ethnography and gender theory—which emphasizes the intersectionality of gender, age, and class in the (re)production of inequalities—can be used to examine consequences of macro-level interventions in ways that may be undetected in conventional public health evaluation techniques but that are crucial for designing and modifying effective interventions.

Time trends in and factors associated with repeat adolescent birth in Uganda: Analysis of six demographic and health surveys

“…This may be sustaining the persistent repeat adolescent births as girls get sent off into marriage at or before first birth and vice versa. The socio-cultural and political positioning in Uganda appears to be perpetuating adolescent births irrespective of the laws and other programs [47]. Our study results show worst statistics during the 2000/01 and 2006 surveys and this was the period when Uganda rollout the implementation of universal primary education and the defilement act (sex or marriage with a girl <18 years was prohibited under the law)-from 1997.…”

HIV testing and linkage to services for youth

“…Identification of sexual activity of minors less than the age of consent threshold may mandate reporting to child protection authorities [ 52 ]. Given concerns about widespread victimization and HIV (especially of girls and younger adolescents) [ 53 ], some countries have enacted “defilement” laws that can be enforced without regard for consensuality of the partnered sex [ 54 ].…”

Behavioral, Biological, and Demographic Risk and Protective Factors for New HIV Infections Among Youth in Rakai, Uganda

“…We found virtually no HIV acquisition among youth who reported no sexual activity. This not unimportant in a society were laws penalize underage sexual activity [44]. Less clear is the extent of underreporting of multiple partnerships in Rakai which has been reported elsewhere in SSA [45].…”