Women who exchanged vows during the civil wedding confess to have waved good bye to the gender based violence and humiliation from their husbands and some society members.
Some of these women have been illegally married for over 40 years and have persevered through mistreatment their partners have given them especially on rights over property inheritance.
Selaphine Yantegeye, who has been illegally married for ten years, reveals civil wedding has delivered her from all sorts of embarrassment and harassment from her husband.
“My husband has been battering me but every time I report to the authorities, they say I am his lover not a wife which has not been the case,” Yantegeye laments.
Yantegeye like her fellow women confess legal marriage has saved them from battering and given them equal rights to property inheritance like their husbands.
The executive secretary of Nyamabuye sector, Jean Baptiste Mugunga who wedded the couples asserts that most family conflicts that result in death happen to couples that are not legally married.
“Civil wedding has put to an end some of the problems we receive as leaders,” he adds.
67 couples wedded out of 210 couples that had registered. This is because some of them did not meet the requirements while others were stopped after finding out they are legally married to other partners.
According to the research by national police, the numbers of men who are killed or commit suicide due to family violence outweigh the number of women.