Search Results

As we observed in Chapter 4, from time immemorial, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have been a scourge of military personnel and of the wars in which they were deployed. So, in her excellent historical review, Venereal Diseases in the Major Armies and Navies of the World, Josephine Hinrichsen (1944, 1945a, 1945b) traces the military problem of female prostitution—and, by implication, the associated spread of STDs—to the great army camps of classical Greece and Rome. In more recent times, the Italian War of Charles VIII (1494–5) provides one of the most dramatic instances of the intersection of armies, STDs, and war—the pan-European dissemination of venereal syphilis by the disbanded mercenary troops of France, Germany, and Italy (see Sect. 2.3.3). Thereafter, epidemics of syphilis and other venereal diseases followed wave-like on wars in Europe and elsewhere (Prinzing, 1916: 18). In Sweden, the syphilis epidemics of 1762 and 1792 were sparked by military returnees from the Seven Years’ (1756–63) and the Russo-Swedish (1788–90) Wars. In the nineteenth century, the Russo-Turkish Wars (1806–12, 1828–9) contributed materially to the spread of the disease in the Balkans (Hinrichsen, 1944). Elsewhere, in World War II (1939–45), the high-level transmission of gonorrhoea, chancroid, and syphilis among Allied personnel in the Burma–India, Africa–Middle East, and Mediterranean Theatres provides a twentieth-century example of the war-related problem of STDs (Sternberg et al., 1960). As Berg (1984: 90) notes, the historical concern of the military wth STDs was eminently a practical one. Prior to the era of antibiotics (penicillin was first used in the military treatment of syphilis and gonorrhoea in 1943), STDs were associated with extended periods of hospital treatment with correspondingly high economic and medical manpower costs to the armed forces. Some impression of the dimensions of the STD problem for one army (US Army) and war (World War I) can be gained from Table 10.1. During a 21-month period of military engagement, April 1917–December 1918, three STDs (chancroid, gonorrhoea, and syphilis) accounted for over 6.8 million days of lost service in the US Army.

This chapter examines refugee economies in the context of two long-standing refugee settlements in south-west Uganda: Nakivale and Kyangwali. It begins by describing the structure of the settlements, their history, and the lives of their inhabitants, and then explains their governance structure. These refugees face a distinctive institutional and regulatory environment compared to host nationals, which creates both opportunities and constraints. While the majority are farmers and rarely leave the settlements, there is also often neglected diversity in terms of refugees’ economic lives. A small but significant number engage in innovation and entrepreneurship, creating opportunities for themselves and others, and even contributing public goods. For the Somali community, which shuns all agricultural work, entrepreneurship is a way of life. Crucially, far from being isolated, the settlements are connected to nearby cities (Mbarara and Hoima) as well as Kampala, through refugee and Ugandan brokers. The chapter investigates variation in these outcomes.