who are Batwas?
About the Batwa as an indigenous minority group
“Batwa people are a historically marginalized indigenous community in Uganda. Their eviction from ancestral lands has relegated them to the fringes of society in many parts of southwestern Uganda. The community faces discrimination and exploitation from larger ethnic groups they live amongst”
The Batwa are nomadic hunter-gatherers who once roamed widely across the forest areas stretching across much of what is now Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Forced into smaller and smaller areas of the forest over the centuries by other ethnic groups who were farmers and who cleared the trees, the Batwa populations managed to preserve their traditional way of life until relatively recently.
In 1991 the Ugandan government created formal conservation areas in the Virunga hills and in nearby Bwindi.
The Batwa were unable to return to hunt small animals, collect wild honey or gather fruit, and found their traditional skills and vast knowledge of the forest ill-suited to life outside it. There was no effort to obtain the consent of the Batwa, or even to explain what was happening. They were neither consulted nor was there any compensation, as the Batwa had never sought to own the land they lived on and from. This was the last straw for the Batwa who had gradually been displaced from the forests by settler farming communities and logging companies that had greatly damaged the forest and imposed private land rights limiting the Batwa’s freedom of movement.
Estimated to be 6,200 people (2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census) in Uganda, the Batwa make up 0.2 per cent of the population. They live in south-western Uganda in the districts of Bundibugyo, Kabale, Kisoro and Rukungiri. The Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest of Uganda was the home of the Batwa before they were evicted, causing them to become dependent on charitable actions of NGOs, religious groups and other well-wishers for well over 30 years.
As a result of eviction without compensation or any clear form of settlement, most Batwa people are now squatters working their neighbors’ fields for a pittance while watching as tourists arrive with $600 government permits to visit the mountain gorillas in the wooded hills and valleys that were once their home. Batwa are currently among the poorest communities in Uganda.
The community is so disadvantaged to the extent that when 10 ago a Mutwa graduated from university, it made headlines in national newspapers.
