Protect children from human sacrifice

The prevalence of child sacrifice in Uganda remains uncurbed. On average, one child is sacrificed every week (Child Sacrifice and Mutilations in Uganda, 2013). This horrific practice involves mutilation and removal of body parts which usually leads to death. The current death rate of victims is 90 per cent.   The gruesome mutilation is done while the child or adult is still alive and very few survive.

     World Vision Uganda joins the rest of the Ugandan community to celebrate the milestone of the newly enacted child protection law “The Prevention and Prohibition of Human Sacrifice Act 2020”. It is impressive to note that all efforts from different stakeholders in bringing this act to realisation did not go to waste.

  Having this act is a celebration that should have come earlier. Many hindrances including being a private member’s bill, and little knowledge about the practice from the policymakers could have contributed largely to its delay.

  While working with Uganda Parliamentary Forum For Children, Children-on the Edge, Kyampisi Children’s Ministries and Uganda Child Rights NGO Network, World Vision leveraged its “It Takes a World to End Violence Against Children” campaign. Such interventions focused on fighting issues that violate the rights of children but also contribute to the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, SDG 16, which emphasizes the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

     Child Sacrifice is a horrific practice and one of the extreme manifestations of violence against children in Uganda. Its effects are devastating as families struggle to cope with this harsh reality. This practice is a deep-rooted social-economic/cultural phenomenon in many parts of Uganda. It is believed that children’s body parts, combined with traditional medicine, create a potent concoction that treats all diseases as well as providing solutions to many other problems.

    The passing of this law will reverse the high demand for children’s body parts in communities by changing the communities’ behavior against the ritualistic practice.  During the parliamentary session to pass this law, the then Minister of State for Planning, Mr David Bahati, said it was disheartening to note that human traffickers earn more than $30 billion per year in trading children and their body parts. “We must, therefore, uphold the principles of this law and even strengthen some of the proposals. It is abhorrent to hear that someone will make the sacrifice of a child’s life to construct a building so that it can generate a lot of wealth for them,” Bahati said. The previous Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, dedicated the new piece of legislation as a gift and avenue for justice for victims of human sacrifice.

    In Uganda, we are glad that a gap in the legal regime where courts could not convict any with human sacrifice offense because there was no such freestanding offense of human sacrifice, thereby making the prosecution of such an offense impossible in courts. We hope that the new law, therefore, reduces the vices with a freestanding offense of human sacrifice against a person who knowingly mutilates, or causes the death of another person, to form or further a ritual and imposes death on such a person.

Obed Byamugisha     

Technical Programme Manager-Child Protection