ASIL Programs > Career Development > Arthur C. Helton Fellowship > Helton Fellowship Profiles and Reflections > 2008 ASIL Helton Fellows > ASIL Helton Fellowship Reflections

Human Rights Law Centre,University of Nottingham
Nakivale, Uganda
By Alice Edward, 2008 Arthur C. Helton Fellow

As a Helton Fellow, I undertook field research in Uganda in July 2008 as part of a Project on Refugee Women at the Forced Migration and Human Rights Unit, within the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham.

With the upcoming twentieth anniversary of the first policy on refugee women of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2010, the Refugee Women Project aims to explore the development and emergence of specific policies on refugee and other displaced women and their implementation at the field level, in order to articulate new methodologies and theories about gender, human rights, and refugee women. It is also interested in the role and impact of international human rights standards relating to women within the displacement context. The field research visit to Uganda was the first in a series of field visits that aim to explore the inter-connections between theory/policy and practice.

The field trip was a worthwhile and rewarding endeavour. In spite of some challenges, I was able to achieve what had been planned for the timeframe in-country. As my first return visit to Africa in three years and my first visit to Uganda, it also came with trepidation. It was also my first solo research visit as part of an academic project, rather than as a humanitarian worker, which presented its own challenges.

During my visit, I met with and interviewed a number of international and national non-governmental organizations, the government bureau responsible for refugees, university academics, and staff of the UNHCR and their implementing partners in Kampala and Mbarara (south-west). Many people were very generous with their time and expertise. In particular, the main part of the mission consisted of interviews with groups of refugee women. I conducted a number of interviews and group meetings in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. Nakivale is a refugee settlement of over 80 sq km, located in the south-west of Uganda, and is home to some 35,000 refugees from Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Ethiopia. I observed a training of newly elected refugee leaders who were being trained in human rights and women’s rights. I also met with a group of about 30 refugee women from Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC living in Kampala who had formed their own self-help group, which meets on a weekly basis. I toured the Refugee Law Project in Kampala, which provides legal and educational assistance to refugees living in Kampala, and met with staff to discuss the implementation of the new Refugees Act 2006 that has been introduced into Uganda, and that includes a number of safeguards for refugee women. I was invited to attend a one-day workshop in Kampala, run by the International Refugee Rights Initiative, entitled, International Justice in Africa: Prospects and Challenges. The workshop brought together experienced civil society advocates from various parts of Africa to discuss the problems of international justice on the continent and to develop a strategy for action. With the background of the ICC indictment of President Bashir of Sudan having just been announced and the arrival into Kampala of 300 UN staff from Sudan due to security concerns, it was a discussion that was set against a very real backdrop of the problems and possibilities of international justice in Africa, a necessary precursor for refugee return.

My status as an academic/university researcher was the first challenge that I confronted. Although having sent many preliminary e-mails regarding the project to various contacts in advance of my visit in order to set up meetings, many of those same individuals were later not available during my visit. Some impromptu telephone calls and drop-ins were needed in order to meet with various individuals and organizations. I also got a sense from some organizations/individuals of fatigue with university/academic researchers. As it was summer in Europe and North America, there were many student researchers working on undergraduate or postgraduate dissertations as well as students undertaking summer internships or volunteer work in Uganda. With over 6,000 NGOs registered in the country, and the particular focus of many of these organizations on the internally displaced in the north of Uganda, there was a sense of fatigue for new projects, as well as a form of wariness of outsiders or new faces.

The same level of fatigue could be sensed with some of the groups of refugees I interviewed. Some of the refugee groups indicated that they were constantly being interviewed (not only by researchers), but that they rarely received any feedback. Others indicated that they had never been asked about their lives or concerns. For these reasons, I committed myself to passing on my preliminary findings to the UNHCR, although this did not overcome the problem of feedback to the refugees themselves and follow-up on any recommendations. Verifying information was also problematic. There were other methodological questions, many of which will be addressed within the context of any write-up on the Project itself. Some of these methodological issues are canvassed in the article by Deborah Mulumba, ‘The Challenges of Conducting Research among Rural-Based Refugees in Uganda’ (2007) 26 Ref. Survey Qty 61-70.

A practical issue was the requirement to attain a research permit in order to visit the refugee settlements. With the assistance of some interlocutors, the Government of Uganda’s Directorate of Refugees was very responsive and accommodating in granting this permit within a couple of days.

In spite of the challenges presented above, the field visit was a success and the aims of the visit were achieved. The visit gave me a very good insight into field research as an academic researcher, and the challenges it presents. In terms of the Refugee Women Project, the field research forms part of a growing body of practical insights into the implementation of policy/theory, and which will hopefully result in a book publication in due course. It also confirmed that further field visits are needed to different locations as part of the Project and further funding is now being sought for this. Nothing can replace gaining a field perspective on human rights issues. The refugee women I met provided insights into their daily lives that were irreplaceable to the Project as it seeks to match the theory/policy to the practice in order to contribute to the ultimate improvement of refugee lives.