Rescued but infected with HIV: Teso child marriage survivor’s story

In July 2023, the life of a 17-year-old girl, who dropped out in Senior Four, changed forever.

After staying at home in Adoku Village, Osuguro Parish, Olio Sub- County in Serere District for two years, Mary (not her real name) enrolled on a skilling programme at Women and Girls’ Rights Advocacy Uganda (WAGRAU), a community-based organisation.

Mary, who had dropped out in Senior Four because of her grandmother’s inability to pay her tuition, was lucky to enroll on a tailoring course with dozens of other vulnerable teenage girls. She completed the course.

However, after graduation, the girl could not afford to buy her own sewing machine and neither could the organisation that trained her.

But she was able to rent from a woman who had the machine but had given birth and was not using it. In the process of tailoring at a nearby trading centre, she bumped into a man who was in the area for a painting gig.

“He told me he was ready to buy me a chewing machine. He took me away from home. He took me to Soroti,” she said.

Upon reaching Soroti, about 40 kilometres from her home, the tone of the conversation soon changed.

It moved from “I will buy you a sewing machine, I will take care of you” to isolating her from her family and friends.

“From there he grabbed my phone, took all my lines and decided to break them all and threw them away. He did that because he never wanted my grand mom to know my whereabouts,” she recalled.

Deborah Akello, founder and team leader at WAGRAU, said the man, old enough to be the girl’s father, would lock her up in the house, beat her, and leave her without food until he came back after drinking.

“So, when he leaves in the morning, he comes back at around 10pm drunk, slaps her around and says she is useless. Somehow she managed to escape,”Akello narrated to Monitor on Thursday.

According to Akello the girl, who had conceived, went to one of the neighbours and called her friend who is a nurse at the centre where she was tailoring and asked the the medical worker to send her money to transport herself from Soroti  City, back to Serere District for an abortion.

The friend established communication with the victim’s grandmother assuring her that the granddaughter had not abandoned her.

Instead, the nurse narrate Mary’s ordeal to the grandmother. Thereafter, the grandmother and Akello started the process of rescuing Mary.  

“We went with the grandmother and the mother to Soroti Police Station where we filed a case. I pretended to have a house, called the suspect and deceived him that there was a painting job. So, when he came to meet me for the job, police apprehended him and he took us up to where Mary was,” said the WAGRAU team leader.

The girl, who contracted HIV/AIDS from the painter, was rescued from Otuboi, Kalaki District, in August 2023 while the accused is currently on remand at Soroti Prison on charges of aggravated defilement.

Soroti City senior probation and social welfare officer Amos Oluka Adotu expressed concern over hundreds of child marriage survivors with painful stories.  

“We have a total of over 2700 girls who are separated from their families and these are carrying their babies. Some of them have been forced into marriages and lead child-headed households that deserve to be given a lot of attention.”

Meantime, new donor collaborations like Enhancing Learning and Coordination to End Child Marriage programme are creating light for child marriage survivors.

The programme is implemented by Joy for Children Uganda through community-led organisations in the eastern Uganda districts of Soroti, Amuria, Serere and Kween, with financial support from nonprofit establishment named Girls First Fund.

“And most of these organisations are also hinging their work around issues of ending child marriage, teenage pregnancy and girl child education which is positive,” said Joy for Children Uganda Executive Director Moses Ntenga.

 For Soroti Girls’ Rights Initiative director Christine Aumo, many girls like Mary in the area need economic empowerment.

“…because the nature of the community is they are really poor, poor. The poverty is the one which is making most of these girls to run for early child marriage,” she observed.

In response, Soroti Girls Support Centre team leader Rebecca Apio said: “We do empower girls in and out of school. The girls that have been empowered in our centre are 1,564. We skill them so that they are able to cater for themselves and the babies they have.”

Ntenga further urged sensitization on the importance of girl education.