The fragile peace that exists now has made it possible to begin the arduous task of rebuilding homes and livelihoods but there is a deeper yearning that is harder to satisfy and that is the yearning for justice. It’s not that there are no lawyers in Uganda, but the lawyers are primarily interested in commercial law because that’s where the money is, says Steve Sanderson, a BMS missionary working on justice development.
That leaves very few to help deal with the growing number of disputes over land ownership – brought on by the return of the IDPs (internally displaced people) – or the thousands of victims of physical, sexual or domestic abuse. Not only that, but there are currently 27,000 people in Uganda’s overcrowded prisons, many of them awaiting a trial that can take five or six years to come because the country’s legal system is so inefficient.
“There is injustice everywhere in the world but particularly here in the Great Lakes region of Africa there have just been so many obvious abuses of people’s human rights, whether it as a result of the Rwandan genocide, or the war in southern Sudan, or in Congo, or here in northern Uganda,” says Steve.
It is this desperate longing for justice that compelled him and his wife Caroline, a qualified solicitor, to make the permanent move to Gulu in northern Uganda a few years ago with their toddler daughter Hannah. That and their firm conviction that justice and peace is what God also wants for the people of northern Uganda.
“For us both, God’s heart for justice was really at the centre of what led us to Africa,” he says.
“When you are here and see justice not being done, a sense of call lingers - and lingers very strongly - and it says you need to stand up and be a voice and be these people’s advocate.
“We were just so convicted by the notion that God isn’t passive about the things that happen here and he doesn’t just say ‘Oh well, humans fight and abuse each other, that’s that’.
“There is a God of righteousness and a God that does care and who sends his church into the world to do something about it.”
When Steve and Caroline offered themselves to BMS for long-term mission, they were sent to work alongside the Baptist Church in Uganda and the Uganda Christian Lawyers’ Fraternity (UCLF).
