Physical Violence Against Women in Uganda: The experience of 30 female prisoners convicted of murder

The aim of this study is to investigate the experience of physical violence among female prisoners convicted of murder in Uganda. Data is being collected from 30 female prisoners in Luzira female maximum security prison using in-depth interviews. Female prisoners were selected using criterion sampling. Luzira prison was purposively selected because all women convicted of murder in Uganda are accommodated here. Different forms of physical violence that include kicking, burning, chocking and threats of harm among others are being investigated. The study is located within the qualitative tradition of phenomenology and feminist standpoint epistemology both of which advocate for researches that emphasize experience and participant's knowledge, in order, to understand social reality. The study is guided by socialist feminist perspective that looks at how class and gender interact to influence the victimization of women, which, eventually, leads to their offending behavior. The research is also guided by the classical framework of sociological imagination by Mills (1959),which urges researchers to understand the lives of individuals by locating them in the broader social and historical conditions that individuals have lived. Data collection is being conducted in a retrospective manner, whereby; female prisoners are reconstructing their history of physical violence prior to imprisonment. I am personally collecting data and I am in the final stages of data collection. Data will be analyzed using the stages of phenomenological data analysis.