A local organization in Western Bahr el Ghazal State, the Agriculture Youth Action for Development Agency (AYADA), with support from USAID through Shejeh Salam, on Monday, commenced a five-day conference to deliberate on Luo customary law.
The conference which brought together 50 traditional leaders, lawyers, and youth and women groups from Jur River County is focusing on the review of Luo customary laws and how to incorporate them into state laws. It also focuses on regulating bride price, divorce, elopement, pregnancy out of wedlock, and adultery among others.
James Okello Awet, the AYADA executive director said the conference aims at documenting the customary laws that govern the Luo ethnic group.
“The aim of the program is to ensure that all the Luo laws are written down to governance us,” he said. “One of the important things to be considered is to agree on bride price and dowry and also on the laws that will prevail in local courts.”
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on the sidelines of the conference, one of the youth representatives, Gabriel Apai Ngong, cautioned the elders against comparing the current situation to the past when there were no cattle raiding. He added that the attitudes of the young generation also differed from those of the elders and that it was not right to charge exorbitant bride prices because a girl was educated.
“If you paid a lot for bride price for your wife, it does not mean you have to ask for a very high bride price for your daughter,” he cautioned. “Some people demand very high bride price for their daughters who are educated but this is wrong because she is the one getting married and not her education.”
“The bride price is for the girl but education has no price,” he charged.
On Monday, the participants at the conference voted for the payment of 15 cows and 30 goats as the bride price but Ngong, a lone voice, insisted on 18 cows.
Aken Uchella, one of the chiefs at the conference, said that at the end of the conference, he expects the Luo community to have clear guidelines on bride prices that will make it easy for young men to get married.
The state ministry of local government and the judiciary are also in attendance to provide operational and technical support to AYADA regarding the documentation of Luo customary laws.