Irene Mulyagonja - My long journey to the IGG office

“Iam thankful for this opportunity to share. And congratulate NTV for starting the first ever women’s television in Uganda. This is all very interesting to me as a woman’s lawyer and I do hope that it picks up fire and all of you run with it to see that we pick up women in the corporate world and all sectors of life because there is discrimination against women in all spheres of life and that is what keeps women behind.

There is a concept called patriarchy, where the male is given preference over the woman. So, we need to have many women fighting patriarchy, although many women do not want to be seen to be fighting patriarchy because actually the biggest detractors of women are women themselves; they are the ones who are recruited to ensure that men remain dominant in society. You have heard about the concept of the Ssenga, the Aunt. Even your own mother, tells you that the man is supreme, your husband is supreme, your brother should be respected, etc.

I was asked to come and share my story as a professional. I started off my worklife as a teacher. I started working in Kampala in the 1980s. I graduated from Law Development Centre (LDC) in 1988, and started work in 1989. I was, fortunately, one of the lucky students. I was one of the best performing students at LDC and I was offered a job to start teaching law at the Centre.

So when I joined LDC I never left; I stayed there as an assistant lecturer.
Unfortunately, I was never promoted to lecturer. I stayed from 1989 to 1993 when I had to leave but I was still an assistant. I do not know why for sure, but someone said it was because there were no promotions at the Centre at the time, so, I left after serving for six years. While at LDC, I was working in private legal practice with a certain firm where I served to the level of associate partner. At the time, it was one of the biggest firms in Kampala in that there were several associate partners and one person, our boss, who was the owner of the firm.

Choosing the ethical way

I will share one experience which many of you are likely to share in the world of work, especially as young women. When you are starting out and looking for jobs, you are forced into all kinds of situations. Now, this is a person (my boss) who took me in and he felt he was doing me a favour because he was allowing me to work in his firm.

So, he tries to harass me sexually. Because I am working in his firm, I should also give those favours on the side. I said, “this is not what I was trained to do; this is not how I am going to make my way up.” So, I was quite forthright with him. I sat down one day and wrote him a note saying, in no uncertain terms that I did not get my degree lying on my back and since he did not either, we should be equals and he should respect me as a professional. After that, I walked out. I got a better job, in a better firm in about two weeks.

So one day he met me on the street and said: “Irene, where are you now?” I said: “I’m actually on the street. I do not have a job.” I did not feel like explaining to him that, “you see, what you did to me forced me into a situation where I went out looking for a job and this is where I work.” Next thing, we were meeting in court, at the Bar, addressing the same judge.
So, that is one of the situations you are likely to share as a young woman starting off at work but you do not have to succumb; you can make it up without what they commonly term as “carpet interviews.”

Looking out for women
But during the process of working as a private legal practitioner, I had a passion for serving women, given my background in the Association of Uganda Women Lawyers. No one had ever started a firm dealing in divorce matters and issues to do with children. We took that and we came to be known for it.

I did not only practice women’s law; I also practiced as one of the lead counsels for the then Non-asset Performing Recovery Trust (NPART). We were also deeply into commercial law; recovery of assets, selling assets of loan defaulters and defending defunct banks in court. I did that from 1997 up to around 2006 when the Trust closed down. I became known as a person who was keen on following cases of banks and also as a person who was ethical in doing business. That is why I was retained for all those years.

In private practice, there are many opportunities. The consultancy world opened up to us and it is through this that we were able to make more money. I was also able to travel to more countries in Africa than I would have been if I was not in private practice and consultancies where the passion is women’s law.

Travel had its interesting moments. It was difficult about 15 years ago. For instance, a woman could not travel alone and not find challenges. One time, I traveled to Kenya and checked into a big hotel. I went to the restaurant and asked for Chinese food and the waiter kept passing me by, I kept asking about the food and he ignored me. It had not occurred to me but eventually, I figured they were wondering about the woman seated alone asking for expensive Chinese food.

In the end, he came and asked whether I was one of the Ethiopian Airlines flight attendants who usually came in. I do not know whether that is why he was treating me like that but I eventually ordered for something else. So, you will find gender discrimination in the workplace and sometimes, when you enter a place alone; especially in our context as Africans you may be discriminated against just for that.

The woman who mentored me
In the consultancy world, you keep feeling like you need mentoring, so I joined this group-Destiny Consult-where one of the women was passionate about training leaders. She took us on for Christian-oriented leadership training. Through that process, Dorothy Kisaaka has trained many, and I learnt a lot about leadership and training others.

I did not know what that was preparing me for but a few months after leaving the programme, I became a judge of the high court and I think the mentorship was preparing me for that. I became a judge at 45, which is very young. I was the youngest person on the bench when I joined. It has its problems because you are posted anywhere in the country. Fortunately, I was posted to Jinja. I had three children who were in school in Kampala and I decided to stay with them in Kampala while commuting every day to Jinja.

Everyone knows the traffic on the Kampala-Jinja route is prone to accidents, but I said in the name of God I was not going to die. I would wake up at 4am, travel at 6am and would be in Jinja by 8am, the first person to reach court.
I used to find the gate still locked and had to bang on it for the guard, who slept in Jinja to open. I asked for the gate key so I could open for myself. That transformed the culture so that my court started at 9am and there was no excuse for even the lawyers who stayed in Kampala.

After two and half years, I was transfered back to Kampala where I became a judge of the Commercial Court. Two and half years on, my work was recognised and I become a deputy head of the Commercial Division of the High Court, which is one of those venerated areas. It was some recognition.

I did not stay there for long; I was recognised and asked to become the Inspector General of Government. Now, why was I recognised? I think people’s work speaks for them. In the Judiciary, people say you are not recognised, it is a thankless job where you toil and nobody seems to recognise you. But I can assure you ladies that if you are truthful, forthright, do your work with ethics, and you are hardworking, someone is bound to recognise you. So, that is how I got to become IGG. Not because I knew the president, no. I had only met him once when I was being sworn in to become a judge of the High Court. The second time I met him was when I was invited to talk to him because I had been proposed to become IGG.
I was little known, publically, but I was known in the judicial circles. When I left the lawyers missed me but I told them I would come back.”

My qualifications
I have an LLB and a diploma in legal practice. Tthat is the qualification one of my teahcers used to say was the only qualification in Uganda because it is one of the toughest programmes, given the number of students who fall out of LDC. I have an MA degree in Counselling from Makerere University. I also have a diploma in a discipline called Women’s Law from University of Zimbabwe.

Working in a male-dominated profession

The legal profession is a male-dominated profession. Sitting at the Bar in Uganda, you will be one woman among a group of men. If you want to make your way up in a male-dominated profession, you have to work twice as hard as the men. Getting to my level means you have to work twice as hard. There is no excuse for not working hard and people will not respect you unless you single yourself out as excellent. In a male-dominated world, if you were not forthright, you will not get much out of your job, especially if you are working for a private organisation as I was.

For instance, I noticed that my colleague who had been my student at LDC was driving a car. I had worked longer in that firm and I had mentored him. He said he had used a loan to get his car. When I asked for a loan I was given one, and so, I bought my first car from my savings and a loan, which fortunately my boss told me I did not have to pay back.

But things did not stay rosy in private practice because my boss decided he wanted to join a bigger firm. When he was joining the bigger firm, we were not given notice that a few would be following him. I later found out that the reason we did not go was because the new firm did not believe in employing women. I think it was believed that women did not work as hard as men, young women, especially are likely to to go off and get married and have children. Sometimes, employers are so prejudiced that you are not going to work all the time.

One morning, a colleague and I, the only two women in the firm, were sitting in the office when the boss said, “Next weekend we are joining the other firm but you are not coming with us. If you want to start a firm of your own, I can give you furniture and your pay of three months in lieu of notice.”
In the afternoon, we told him we would start a firm, and we did the following week. We jumped into the lake and hoped we would start. Now, when you are two women partners, people wonder whether you will survive. We made it from 1996 up to 2008 when I left. People who believed in us kept on giving us work.