Three siblings defiled, impregnated

Authorities in Mayuge District have expressed concern over growing cases of defilement after three underage pupils from the same family and school were found seated at home after being impregnated.

The councilor representing youth at Bukatube sub-county council, Mr Emmanuel Okori, discovered the trio seated with their mother in Wamondo village within the same sub-county during a routine monitoring exercise to establish how many children stayed home after term one reopened on February 5.

“I was looking for children still at home after term one opened and when I reached Wamondo village, I found the mother seated with three girls and when I asked why they had not yet reported to school, they told me that they had conceived,” Mr Okori said on Tuesday.

The girls’ mother reportedly told Mr Okori that her 16-year-old daughter had been impregnated by a married neighbour who has since denied responsibility while the 14-year-old girl was allegedly impregnated by another man in the village whom they had asked to marry her, but he instead sent her back to her mother’s home.

The person behind the pregnancy of the 12-year-old girl remains unknown because she has declined to reveal his identity.

Mr Okori further revealed that the 12-year-old girl is three months pregnant, while the 16-year-old girl is four months pregnant.

According to Mr Okori, the pupils, aged 12 years, 14 years and 16 years, are in Primary Three, Four and Five respectively at Lukindu Primary School in Bukatube sub-county.

The school head teacher, Mr Musa Tewa, told this publication all the girls appeared in the school’s register a year ago, and none of them had reported to school this year.

He said: “Records at my school indicate that these girls appeared in the registers one year ago, but because they feared to be arrested for staying home when schools had reopened, they deceived that they belong to my school.”
Mr Okori says the girls’ matter has been reported to Police in Bukatube sub-county for investigation, but in the meantime, he appeals to NGOs, government and child rights activists to intervene because child abuse is rampant in Mayuge District.

“Bukatube sub-county is ranked third out of 16 sub-counties in Mayuge in child abuse, especially defilement; we need the intervention of bodies fighting for the rights of children before the situation runs out of hand,” he said.

The Busoga East police spokesperson, Ms Diana Nandaula, said defilement cases should always be reported to district police offices instead of police posts in villages, which she said sometimes mismanage such cases, the reason they were barred from handling them.

“The policy in police is that capital offences should be handled by district but these units in sub-counties handle them which is not good and I cannot rule out the cases being messed up by them,” Ms Nandaula said.

She, however, said at times, police fail to handle these cases because the victims’ parents hide them upon learning that the matter has been taken up by police, while other parents prefer being given money by the suspects and don’t report the cases.

The executive director Save the Young mothers-Uganda, a Mayuge-based NGO, Ms Betty Angatai, says teenage pregnancy in the district stands at 27 percent, with Bukatube sub-county having a “high rate” attributed to parents’ poverty and negligence.

Every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years in developing regions become pregnant and approximately 12 million of them give birth according to World Health Organisation. Globally, adolescent birth rate (ABR) has decreased from 64.5 births per 1000 women (15–19 years) in 2000 to 41.3 births per 1000 women in 2023.

At 25 percent, Uganda has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in sub-Saharan Africa, acording to National Institutes of Health (NIH).