Josephine Namiiro gestures during an interview with NTV Uganda/Daily Monitor. PHOTO/SCREENGRAB/WILLIAMS KINTU
Young women being used and abandoned by men who previously declared love for them is as old as the world itself. In Uganda, this abandonment is the most common cause of the rise in single motherhood. However, when a poor girl catches the attention of a white man, she hopes that he will lift her out of the poverty in which her family is mired. Sometimes, this turns out to be a pipe dream as Gillian Nantume writes.
The children play around her, calling to each other, oblivious to the pain written on their mother’s face. Her tears leave a trail down her cheeks. They are adorable little boys with curly hair.
While the older child has black hair, the younger child has light brown hair. Both are fluent in Luganda. The elder child, though, has a hunchback, and he limps as he tries to run, his chest going before him. He is seven years old.
Josephine Namiiro’s hair needs a retouch. The 28-year-old woman's forehead and cheeks are a mosaic of tiny pimples from the heat.
The family lives in a room, in a row of rooms in the complicated maze of the Wabigalo slum, in Namuwongo, a low-scale city suburb. Praise and worship songs from the Pentecostal church nearby punctuate the misery.
“My children are sickly. Sometimes, I call people, begging for money to take them to a clinic. Sometimes, my mother borrows money from her neighbours in the village and sends it. That is what we used to buy food,” Namiiro says.
A few years ago, the mother of two was the one sending money back home to her mother and siblings. Today, she is servicing a loan she took to buy a sewing machine, which she placed on the verandah of her friend’s shop. She has to pay rent for that space, rent for the room the family lives in, and buy food. Her children dropped out of school mid-last year.
“Last week, my older son fell off the verandah and sustained a deep cut on his forehead. We were supposed to return to the hospital today for a review, but I do not have money. For the last four days, he has been passing blood in his urine. I am worried,” she laments.
When Monitorasks Namiiro why she does not take the child to Kiruddu National Referral Hospital, which is a government facility, she says she is traumatised by the fact that her brother died in that hospital a few weeks ago.
A love so beautiful
A few years ago, Namiiro lived the Ugandan version of the American dream. She was a regular in the departure lounge at Entebbe International Airport, traveling off to enjoy life with her lover, Jonathan Small, at holiday destinations in Mombasa, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania.
Josephine Namiiro and her two sons walk back to their room in Wabigalo slum in Kampala. PHOTO/WILLIAM KINTU
Namiiro, who grew up with a single mother in Bulamu village, Mityana district, used to weed people’s gardens for survival. When she was 14, she left Mityana after she secured a job in a saloon in Zana town, in Wakiso district.
“After work, I would sleep in the saloon because I could not afford to rent a room. Then, a vehicle hit me as I was crossing the road. That is when I left that job and moved to Kikuba Mutwe to live with my sister. In 2012, I got a job as a cook in a restaurant in Muyenga,” she says.
Kikuba Mutwe is a slum in Kabalagala town in Kampala City. The restaurant where Namiiro worked served organic, boiled local food. Several foreigners patronised it. That is where, at the tender age of 15, she met the man who would bring her so much joy and sorrow.
“Jonathan Small is an American man who owns a company that installs telecom masts. Whenever he came to the restaurant, I would give him the menu. He would greet me and smile at me. One day, he wrote down his mobile phone number on a receipt and dropped it in a basket at the reception,” she says.
When Namiiro told him she did not have a mobile phone, Small stepped out of the restaurant for a while. When he returned, he had a brand-new mobile phone and a sim card.
“I was a Primary Five dropout, and I could not speak English. When he called, I gave the phone to a workmate who spoke to him. He invited me out on a date,” Namiro recalls.
Her friend tagged along on the date to interpret what her white lover said as he expressed his love for her. That day, he promised her heaven on earth, committing to take her back to school.
“At the end of the date, he gave me Shs2,000. I was shocked. I wondered what kind of white man this was. I did not go with my friend on our next date. I did not understand a word he said but I responded, ‘yes, yes,’ to all he said. We were happy,” she reminisces.
As avid tourists, the couple visited all the national parks in the country before deciding on trips abroad.
“That man loved me. He took me back to school. He gave me the confidence to interact with people at the various airports we traveled through. When I completed Primary Seven, he sent me an air ticket and instructed me to meet him in Nairobi. We spent my entire vacation there,” she says.
Namiiro joined secondary school at the Adult School at Sharing Centre Hall, Nsambya. It was in her third term in Senior Three, in 2017, that she discovered she was pregnant with their first child.
At the time, she was still living in Kikuba Mutwe slum with her sister. Her lover rented her a room in Kansanga, a suburb in Makindye Division. The rent was Shs180,000 per month. He also told her to drop out of school and concentrate on the pregnancy. In 2018, when Small was out of the country, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy at Mukwaya General Hospital.
“When he returned, he said his son needed to grow up in a good neighbourhood, so he shifted us to a house in Muyenga. However, he told me that he did not want to have another child. He would spend three months with us and then fly out of the country on business. We resumed our trips and around that time, we visited Fort Jesus in Mombasa,” she recalls.
Trouble in paradise
When their son was one year old, his upper spine began curving. At first, the mother did not notice the change. It was a neighbour’s child who alerted her.
“His father was out of the country, but he instructed me to take our son to Kibuli Muslim Hospital. A scan confirmed that his spinal cord was curving. They gave me several syrups and discharged us,” she says.
The boy’s situation did not get better. An x-ray at St Francis Hospital Nsambya confirmed that her son was developing a hunchback. Eventually, in 2022, they were referred to the Agha Khan Hospital in Nairobi. In Nairobi, the doctors advised that the boy needed an urgent specialised operation either in India or the United States of America, to straighten his back.
By that time, the baby had developed breathing difficulties. When they returned to Kampala from Nairobi, disaster struck. Namiiro discovered she was pregnant again.
“My lover advised me to abort the pregnancy. I refused. I had heard that people died during abortions. I did not want to die and leave my baby at a time when he was sickly,” she says.
An angry Small warned Namiiro that he would leave her if she did not get rid of the pregnancy. She thought he was joking. One day, while buying groceries downtown, her phone rang.
“He was at the airport. He told me he was leaving me. I was confused. I asked him why. He said he did not want another child. He had paid rent for one extra month and advised me to return to the village when the month elapsed,” she says.
Josephine Namiiro and Jonathan Small in their happier times. PHOTO/COURTESY
Namiiro is now so distraught that the words fail her. She cries as she narrates her sad tale.
“He blocked my phone number. I could not call him yet I had a sick child who needed medical attention. When I informed the landlord of my plight, he told me to look for another place to live in. My brother gave me some money and I rented a room in Wabigalo slum. I packed everything in the house and took it to the slum,” she laments.
From a house to a leaky room
It rained heavily that night. The room was leaking. They stayed up the whole night, using saucepans to pour out the water that found its way into the room.
“My child kept asking why we had come to such a bad place, but I had no answer. He fell very sick and almost died. I was stressed. We did not have food. A friend advised me to get a loan and buy a sewing machine, rent a space on a verandah, and begin mending clothes. I took her advice,” Namiiro recalls.
In those first weeks, a heavily pregnant Namiiro was begging for food from friends - mostly eating what was supposed to go into the trash can. Filled with righteous anger at what her lover was putting her through, she reported a case of abandonment at Kabalagala Police Station.
“The police officers asked if the father of my children was living in Kampala. I told them he had gone back to the U. S. They asked how I expected them to arrest a man living in America. They advised me to find a job. That day, I almost suffered a miscarriage,” she cries.
When she reached her room, Namiiro began bleeding. Her brother took her to a clinic, where it was discovered that the baby had stopped growing because she was underweight.
“The doctor gave me a list of things to eat daily such as porridge, eggs, and juice. I almost laughed. I only had money for kikomando (chapati and beans) and that is what we ate once a day,” she says.
Despite her sickness, she still had to sit at the sewing machine every day to make some money to pay their rent. Someone directed her to a white midwife in Namuwongo and that is where she attended antenatal services.
“That woman tried to help me. She knew the Division Police Commander at Kabalagala Police Station. With her help, in December 2022, the station gave me an introduction letter to take to the U.S. Embassy, explaining my plight,” she recalls.
Namiiro was not allowed into the embassy. She was told to write an email, explaining her circumstances. She wrote the email and according to her, attached the photos of her lover and child. The embassy responded, advising her to hire a lawyer.
“I did not have money to hire the services of a lawyer. I decided to focus on delivering my second child safely. Then, out of the blue, my lover called and demanded to talk to his son. He did not want to talk to me,” she says.
The child told his father about the bad situation they were going through. It was a video call, so Small could see the shack they lived in. He instructed his son - who was five years old at the time - to tell Namiiro to register at Kibuli Muslim Hospital where he would pay for her to give birth.
“He told me to name the child after him. Whenever he called he would only talk to our son. Not me. He even sent money for school fees and the child began attending nursery school in Muyenga. However, he never sent us money for food,” she says.
When Namiiro informed Small that the newborn baby had fallen ill, he blocked her again. The stress of looking after two children has eventually taken its toll on her body. She was diagnosed with high blood pressure. At some point, she was placed on oxygen. Her siblings paid the hospital bills.
“When I was discharged and returned to our room in Wabigalo, I experienced breathing difficulties. I always left the door open at night. One morning, I woke up to an empty room. The thieves had even taken the TV off the wall. They only left the fridge,” she cries.
Charting a way forward
Today, Namiiro is back to zero, with two children to feed. Two months ago, she met the Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, Balaam Barugahara Ateenyi, and after he listened to her plight, he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The officials who met me at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs promised to work on my case. They said they would wait for a response from the U.S. Embassy. It is now two months without a response,” she says.
Asuman Matovu, the head of litigation at Musangala Advocates and Solicitors, paints a grim picture of Namiiro’s prospects. He says although the amendments to the Marriage Bill may cater for the fallout when cohabiting couples separate, that challenge is that it does not cater to situations where Ugandans are married to, or cohabiting with, foreigners.
“The Foreign Judgements (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act mainly works in East African countries where Ugandan court orders and judgements can be enforced. If that woman secures a maintenance order against the father of her children, how is it going to be enforced? Uganda does not have a reciprocal arrangement with the U.S.,” he says.
Matovu adds that while under the theory of obligations, a country may consider the aspect of fairness and jurisdiction on humanitarian grounds and advise its citizen to take on the obligation of looking after his children, the situation in America is slightly different.
“The American system prefers that someone files a case within the American courts so that an order can be issued to compel the man. But with the woman’s limited resources, this is a challenge. This is a lesson to Ugandans intending to contract marriages with foreigners. You have to be certain of the nature of the person you intend to marry,” he advises.
One of Namiiro’s friends, who works in Dubai, advised her to take the children to the village and begin work on the process to join the long procession of girls leaving the country to work as maids in Arab countries.
“I want to do that. Unfortunately, my first child is sick. Sometimes, when we go to the hospital, he is placed on oxygen. My mother cannot handle that kind of stress. I am the only one who can give my son the care he needs,” she says.
Now, Namiiro is relying on God’s providence to provide for her and her children. She does not regret having a second child, though.
“I am glad I did not have an abortion. At first, I regretted but now there is no turning back because the child is here. But I wish their father would provide the money for the medical care of our first child. I also pray that a Good Samaritan can help us,” she says.
Namiiro’s friend and boss, Hatikah Babirye, a fashion designer in Kabalagala, is the one who gave her the advice to keep the baby because she does not believe in abortion.
“I did not know that things would come to this. Of course, now I blame my friend. It wasn’t right for her to get pregnant, yet the man had insisted he wanted only one child. But the idea of abortion is not good,” she explains.
Hatka is the one who taught Namiiro how to use a sewing machine because she needed a skill as she waited for her man to change his mind and return to her.
“When he cut off communication with her, he continued chatting with me on my phone. But recently, when I sent him a message that his son had sustained a deep cut on the forehead, he blocked me. I sent him a message using another phone number. After reading the message, he blocked that number as well,” Hatka says as tears roll down her face.
When Namiiro met Small, she was still a young girl from the village. She was not exposed to life and just like any girl forced to become an adult by poverty, she thought God had finally answered her prayers by bringing a white man her way. But alas! She fell from the frying pan into the fire.
