Agather Atuhaire

Agather Atuhaire (born c.1988) is a Ugandan lawyer, human rights defender and freelance journalist. She exposed corruption and maladministration which has gained her recognition by the EU ambassador and the US Secretary of State.

Life
Atuhaire was born in Sheema District in about 1988. Her childhood was difficult as her father spent too much money on alcohol. She completed high school due to a scholarship at Alliance School Mbarara. Lack of money meant that she could not fulfil her ambition to take law so she studied journalism at Makerere University.

In June 2022 she was made human rights defender of the month by DefendDefenders. In 2023 she was given the EU Human Rights Defenders Award for 2022 by the EU Ambassador to Uganda, Jan Sadek. Saduk identified her recent work with the Law Development Center where she discovered that students inexplicably fail courses and there was no appeals or investigations. She has had disputes with the politicians Anita Among and Mathias Mpuuga and with the local sewerage company. Atuhaire revealed that Anita Among and her deputy had both purchased expensive cars using public money. The cars were not necessary as they both already had luxury cars. When the purchase was not approved they had those responsible replaced with more compliant individuals. Atuhaire exposure of this corruption led to her being called to account. She was given threats when her accusers discovered that she could not be arrested because everything she had done was legal.

In March 2024 she was in Washington where she was recognised as an International Woman of Courage by the US State Department. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and first lady Jill Biden made the award on 4 March 2024. After the IWOC ceremony the awardees are invited to take part in the State department's International Visitor Leadership Program where they meet each other and others interested in their work.