CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION 1.0. Introduction. This study is an investigation of the legal and customary impacts of divorce on women and children in Uganda. The study will explore the problems that divorcees (women) and the children of these families are faced with and interventions that have been employed to address the trauma that they are faced with. This chapter will present the background to the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the objectives of the study, the research questions, the hypothesis, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and justification of the study. 1.1. Background Divorce refers to the legal termination of a marriage and the obligations created by marriage, other than, by a decree of nullity or presumption of death as defined by Oxford Dictionary of Law1 . Divorce is a legislatively created, judicially administered process that legally terminates a marriage and can no longer be considered viable by any of the spouses and that permits them to remarry if so they wish. Human rights are inherent and inalienable rights that everybody possesses. As long as men continue being viewed as a dominant class, there would be no real freedom for women for they will always continue to be handicapped by men's natural and cultural privileges and the implication is that building a culture of respect for universal rights requires that the human rights of women be recognized and protected without any kind of discrimination.