“When the obvious brother is not there”: Political and cultural contexts of the orphan challenge in northern Uganda

Abstract

It is estimated that two million of Uganda's children today are orphaned primarily due to AIDS. While recognising the immense impact of HIV/AIDS on the present orphan problem, this article calls for a broader historic and cultural contextualisation to reach an understanding of the vastness of the orphan challenge. The study on which the article is based was carried out among the Langi in Lira District, northern Uganda, with a prime focus on the situation of orphans within the extended family system. The data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork (8 months); in-depth interviews with community leaders (21), heads of households (45) and orphans (35); through focus group discussions (5) with adult men and women caring for orphans, community leaders and with orphans; and also through documentary review. A survey was conducted in 402 households. The findings reveal a transition over the past 30 years from a situation dominated by ‘purposeful’ voluntary exchange of non-orphaned children to one dominated by ‘crisis fostering’ of orphans. Sixty-three percent of the households caring for orphans were found to be no longer headed by resourceful paternal kin in a manner deemed culturally appropriate by the patrilineal Langi society, but rather by marginalised widows, grandmothers or other single women receiving little support from the paternal clan. This transition is partly linked to an abrupt discontinuation of the Langi ‘widow inheritance’ (laku) practice. It is argued that the consequential transformations in fostering practices in northern Uganda must be historically situated through a focus on the effects of armed conflicts and uprooting of the local pastoral and cotton-based economy, which have occurred since the late 1970s. These processes jointly produced dramatic economic marginalisation with highly disturbing consequences for orphans and their caretakers.

Introduction

The search for an “obvious brother” was frequently brought up when older informants in Amach sub-county, Uganda, described the customary process of securing care for the children of a deceased father. The concept points to the individual among the deceased's agnates who is judged to be the one most likely to provide the best care and protection for the orphaned children and, if still alive, for the widow(s). “Obvious brothers” have become rare in Amach, and this article deals with the complex question of why customary patterns of care for orphans appear to be breaking down. At the heart of the argument is a call for local economic–political and cultural contextualisation of the present-day orphan challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.

The magnitude of the recent orphan challenge in Africa has become frightening. Deininger, Garcia and Subbarao (2003) write that while in the early 1980s barely 2% of Africa's children were orphans, recent estimates (UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID, 2004) put this proportion at as high as 12% for sub-Saharan Africa, and 15–19% in several of the countries hardest hit by AIDS. Foster and Williamson (2000) observe that of all the children orphaned by AIDS worldwide, 95% are today found in Africa where the numbers are expected to continue to rise and reach 40 million by 2010. With a population of about 25 million people, Uganda alone is currently estimated to have around two million orphans, constituting approximately 19% of all children in the country (Wakhweya et al., 2002, p. V1). This estimate is based on a definition of orphaned children aged below 18 who have lost one or both parents. This is also the definition employed in this paper, and—albeit not limited by age—this definition corresponds to the customary orphan concept of the Langi people of Lira District, northern Uganda, the people among whom the material for this paper was collected.

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, child fostering has been widely practised as far back as history can take us and, according to Aspaas (1999) and Isiugo-Abanihe (1985), has simply been considered ‘normal’. A recent report on the situation of orphan care in 40 sub-Saharan countries states that:

extended families have assumed responsibility for more than 90 percent of orphaned children. Today, 20 percent of households with children in southern Africa are caring for one or more orphans. These family networks will continue to be the central social welfare mechanism in most countries (UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID, 2004, p. 10).

Simultaneously it has been pointed out how AIDS has unravelled the extended family, the traditional safety net for orphans, sometimes leaving orphans in households where not a single adult is able to earn a living (Ankrah, 1993; Drew, Makufa, & Foster, 1998; Hunter, 2000; Mrumbi, 2000; Mukiza-Gapere & Ntozi, 1995; Nyambedha, Wandibba, & Aagaard-Hansen, 2003; Rutayuga, 1992; Shetty & Powell, 2003). The dramatic recent increase in numbers and the immense hardships faced by orphans have indeed particularly been linked to the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has devastated the African continent since the late 1980s. Although the consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is surely located at the core of the recent orphan challenge in large parts of Africa, this article points to the need for moving beyond HIV/AIDS when we seek to grasp the broader dynamics of the present crisis unfolding at the household level in sub-Saharan Africa. In line with Madhavan (2004), we shall argue that further exploration of the complex embeddedness of local orphan scenarios is vital in order to address the challenge in the best possible way.

In this article we shall focus on transitions in care relations for orphans within the Langi extended family system, and particularly explore the complex reasons why “obvious brothers”, i.e., the customary obvious caretakers, are no longer providing adequate care and support for orphaned Langi children.