Honourable Brigadier Jim Muhwezi Katugugu
Minister
Ministry of Health
Plot 6 Lourdel Road, Wandegeya
P.O. Box 7272
Kampala, Uganda

[Date]

Dear Honourable Katugugu,

I am gravely concerned about domestic violence and its impact on women’s vulnerability to HIV infection in Uganda. Women in Uganda are raped and battered by their intimate partners, while violence, or the threat of violence, prevents them from protecting themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and from freely seeking HIV/AIDS treatment and counseling leaving them vulnerable to infection.

It is horrifying that Ugandan women are forced to remain in abusive relationships that expose them to sexual intercourse with HIV infected men, because they have no rights to property and are unable to live independently. Traditional practices such as widow inheritance also expose women to unprotected and unwanted sex with HIV-positive partners. These devastating practices violate women’s human rights, doom development efforts, and undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS. For as long as your government fails in any meaningful way to criminalize or prosecute violence against women in the home, and ignores the role of violence, and, in particular, unwanted sexual relations in marriage, in exposing women to HIV-infection, Ugandan women will continue to die.

The Ugandan government must take immediate steps to eliminate domestic violence and its role in women’s exposure to HIV infection. Among other things, its leaders should:

For the sake of Ugandan women, I urge you to put domestic violence against women and its impact on HIV transmission high on your agenda.

Sincerely,