West Nile pupils petition govt over child marriages

Pupils from various schools have petitioned the government and local leaders over the continued child marriages and early pregnancies which they said have ruined the girl child’s future.

The pupils made the petition during the Children’s Summit, conducted by World Vision, Amani Initiative and 18 other civil society organisations, in Arua City at the weekend.

The pupils said their rights are being trampled on by those who force them into early marriages and blamed the vice on inadequate implementation of the various laws which are fundamental in protecting girls and boys in schools.

They also accused some parents of marrying them off at a young age in anticipation of the bride price and other riches and urged the government to strengthen the Judiciary and Police to ensure that they are not compromised when handling cases of abuse.

Doris Wadiko, a child mother, said there are many girls whose rights are being abused in the various villages, but cannot come out to speak freely.

She said she got pregnant in 2015 while in her Senior Two. Wadiko said she was enticed by the gifts she received from her boyfriend and she eventually had unprotected sex with him.

“My father wasn’t providing enough and I had to get a friend to contribute towards my school fees. That’s how I got pregnant,” she said.

She said when she got pregnant, she dropped out of school until the Amani Initiative, an NGO, came to her aid and got her back to school.

She has now completed her Senior Four exams in the just concluded Uganda Certificate of Education exams.

The Programme Officer of Amani Initiative, Mr Nixon Ochatre, said: “Child marriage has existed for long in various places either because of poverty, bad cultural and religious practices because some of them suppress the girl child to talk about such abuses.”

Mr Ochatre said through the Girl Child Summit, they hope to find lasting solutions to child marriage.

The Child Protection Officer at World Vision, Mr Job Auruku, said: “We have a lot of cases of children being married off. But we are partnering with several organisations to bring back these girls who got married off. They should get back to school because marriage cannot be a solution for their future.”

Responding to the claims of the bad cultural practices, the Prime Minister of the Lugbara Kari Cultural Institution, Mr Ismail Tuku, said they discourage elders in villages from promoting child marriages.

“We need to be law abiding and we are telling elders to be exemplary by allowing these girls to reach an appropriate age of marriage, not even at 18 but at least when someone has completed university education,” he said.

The Arua District chairperson, Mr Alfred Okuonzi, said the struggle to eliminate the vice should be tackled comprehensively from all fronts.

Statistics

The Uganda Demographic Household Survey (UDHS) and Unicef 2020 report indicates that one in four Ugandan women aged 15-19 have given birth or are pregnant with their first child by the age of 18.

While 34 percent of women aged 25-49 are married before the age of 18 and 7.3 percent before the age of 15.

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