Adopted and rejected: A life without identity

While the young man carries a green plastic chair out of a mud hut with an iron sheet for a door, his pregnant wife sweeps the compound with an improvised broom of dry sticks.  

Joseph Oloo and his wife, Patricia Agwenorwot, live in a grass-thatched hut in East Division, Lira City. His rent is Shs10,000 per month. 

The 23-year-old is in an identity crisis, not knowing what to do with his life. He does not know who his birth parents are, or what tribe and clan he belongs to. 

Although Rose Abonyo, the woman who adopted him, says she did so legally, her clan has rejected him.

“My brothers gave me four acres of our late father’s land but have not allowed my son to use it. They are concerned that if the boy kills someone, who will pay the blood compensation? Who will give him the resources for marriage?” Abonyo laments. 

Now sickly, the 65-year-old Abonyo, a resident of Aton village in Alito sub-county, Kole district, is at a loss of what to do. In this patriarchal system, her brothers have the absolute power to name who, from their family, belongs to the clan and who does not.

How it all began 
In 2001, a baby, wrapped in a plastic bag, was abandoned in the rain near the Golf Course on Kitante Road in Kampala City. The baby’s umbilical cord and the placenta were still attached. By the time Good Samaritans opened the plastic bag, it had been raining for hours. 

Leaving the baby in the rain, the kind people rushed to Ward B of Mulago National Referral Hospital and reported to the medic on duty that morning, Dr Richard Nam. 

Now retired and living in Kole district, the obstetrician and gynecologist says he had worked the night shift and was about to sign out at 8.30am, when he was accosted in the corridor.  

“They told me, ‘Daktari, we don’t know whether it is still alive. Can you help us?’ I quickly mobilised two midwives and we set off for the Golf Course. We found the boy breathing, so we picked him up and brought him to the ward,” Dr Nam recalls. 

The team cut off the umbilical cord and placenta, resuscitated the baby, and then took him to the Intensive Care Unit for children.

“We collected money amongst ourselves, bought milk and began feeding him. For four months, we fed him constantly until he picked up. We were all happy. Joseph is a miracle boy who narrowly survived death,” Dr Nam narrates.  

A few years later, the gynecologist connected the vulnerable infant to Abonyo who had, for a long time, wanted to adopt a child. The woman was living at the Kibuli Police Training School in Makindye Division, where she was a cook. 

“I come from the same village as Abonyo so I knew her personally. She did not have a child. Earlier, she had approached me and told me she was growing old and wanted to adopt a child. I told her we had a boy but I advised her to go through the normal legal processes,” he says. 

Earlier, Abonyo had adopted a three-year-old girl child, Helen Acio, through Dr Nam. 

“I had a free house to live in and there was food. I was earning a lot of money from cooking, so I got the boy within one week,” Abonyo says.

On December 12, 2006, she obtained a certificate of adoption from the Probation and Social Welfare Officer of Makindye Division. The boy was five-years-old and his adoptive mother named him Joseph Oloo.

“I kept on visiting them in Kibuli and I noticed that the child grew fat and healthy. When I retired, I lost track of them. Recently, though, the boy came to me saying his uncles were chasing him away because they do not know who gave birth to him. You know how those villagers talk,” Dr Nam says. 

At the time, Abonyo was living with her boyfriend, Francis Obonyo. Oloo says she told him that was her father. He had also met all his adoptive mother’s relatives. 

“Obonyo never paid my school fees. One day, mum took him to the police station and when he was asked why he doesn’t pay my fees, he said I was not his son. I heard this statement. When I asked my mother, she said those who are saying Obonyo is not my father should show me my father,” Oloo says. 

Abonyo told the boy that she had carried him in her stomach, but whenever the two returned to Lira for Christmas holidays, the villagers would tell him that he had been picked off the streets.

Abandoned by his mother
In 2013, when Abonyo lost her job, she returned to the village with her son. At first, her brothers refused to give her a share of the land until she threatened to construct a house on top of her parent’s graves. 

“They later gave her land to cultivate on. I bought two goats, sheep and a cow, which were all stolen by my cousins. My uncles began telling me to go back to my father’s home. In 2015, mum returned to Kampala and left me in her hut in Lira town,” Oloo recalls.

His mother did not say goodbye to him. Instead, she left the keys with a neighbor and disappeared. Oloo was going to Lira Police Primary School at the time, but before she left, his mother only paid school fees for one term. 

She did not leave him with money for upkeep. At first, he survived on raw mangoes. Later though, he began working as a loader at a soap factory every evening.

“I was in Primary Four but I paid my own school fees for two years. I also paid the rent of Shs20,000 per month and fed myself. One day I fell sick with malaria. I was so ill that I could not walk to the toilet. I wanted to commit suicide,” Oloo says.

Unsure of where his mother was, Oloo called his uncles. He says they told him to either go to his father or die. A friend took him to hospital. When he returned to school, his teachers accused him of skipping lessons and beat him. He decided to drop out in Primary Six. 

In 2021, Oloo traveled to Tororo to seek out his mother’s ex-boyfriend, Francis Obonyo. He hoped that his ‘father’ would welcome a long-lost son. Although Obonyo welcomed the boy, his wife did not. 

“I stayed with my father’s family for five months. Whenever I asked him to give me land to construct a house – as he had done with his other sons – he ignored me. His children kept telling me that I did not belong to that family,” he says. 

He alleges that Obonyo’s family tried to poison him by forcing him to drink an herbal concoction, which they told him was medicine for stomachaches.

When he refused the drink, Obonyo’s sons beat him. Oloo had to sell his mattress to get the transport fare to return him to Lira City. 

In December 2023, Abonyo fell ill and returned to her village. Oloo met with his uncles at her sickbed. 

“One uncle told me he was going to tell me the truth. He told me mum was not my real mother. When I asked her, she confirmed it and told me to go to Dr Nam. That is when I found out how I came into this world,” Oloo says, a sad smile on his face.  

Seeking justice
Tom Odongo, also known as Mon Bwonyo, is Abonyo’s brother and Oloo’s uncle. He says their clan, Arak Okwero Yito, does not have a place for children like Oloo. Mon Bwonyo is a member of the Council of Elders (Itogo Adwong) under the Lango Cultural Institution. 

“If that boy commits crime, who will compensate the aggrieved family? The clan leaders cannot accept to pay the blood compensation. Where is he from? Who are his parents? I am not willing to take care of him,” he says.

Dr Nam is a former Prime Minister of the Lango Cultural Foundation and is currently the clan leader of Okii Amat clan. He disagrees with Mon Bwonyo, insisting that Oloo is part of their family and clan. He says Abonyo was informed that after the legal adoption, the child would have a share in her property.

“I told her recently that if I had known she was going to reject the boy in the future, I would not have given him to her. Several ladies came to me, wanting to adopt this boy but I chose Abonyo because she came from my village. If this problem had landed in my clan, I would have solved it a long time ago,” he says.

In October, after he and his wife spent three days without eating, Oloo told Dr Nam that he wanted to commit suicide.

“I began supporting him and his pregnant wife by giving them food and caring for the pregnancy. Unfortunately I failed to find a job for him. It pains my heart because this boy is a miracle child. But now, he has been rejected,” he laments.

Oloo says his hard situation forced him to seek solace in a wife who will comfort him.

“She is there for me whenever I am going through emotional pain. When I was still single, I used to return home at midnight, but now, I come home at 7pm. Even if I only have Shs1,000, I budget for her and the baby. Even now, we don’t have food in the house but she is still here,” he says.

According to Dr Nam, in October, when Oloo and his wife had spent three days without eating, he tried to commit suicide because he has lost hope for the future.  

“I told him not to kill himself and promised to continue feeding him and his wife until he gets a job. I tried calling Abonyo and her brothers and they were very rough with me.

Now sickly, Abonyo, who now walks with the aid of a stick, lives in a dilapidated grass-thatched hut on her brother’s land, 20 kilometres away from the City. The thatches are missing in some parts on the roof, making her vulnerable to rain.  

Oloo has a Class B driving permit, which allows the driver to operate motorcycles and dual-purpose vehicles. He studied sign language and dog handling. However, he is unemployed.   

“I need a small piece of land of my own where I can place my wife and mother. I love my mother because she is the only one I know. I feel bad that she lives in a terrible hut but I have nothing to do,” Oloo says.  

Dr Nam calls on Good Samaritans to help Oloo buy an acre of land, which is between Shs15 million and Shs20 million outside the Lira City. 

“He could buy the land in another village, but not too deep in the rural areas because he is a foreigner. It is not very common for our people to adopt children. What is common here are children that our girls produce out of wedlock. Joseph’s case is unique because he was picked up in Kampala,” he says.

He adds that Oloo needs land if he is to benefit from government poverty-eradication programs such as Emyooga and the Parish Development Model (PDM). 

Oloo’s chances 
Elizabeth Alyano, the executive director of Centre for Women and Children Reintegration (CEWOCHR), a non-governmental organisation that addresses the challenges faced by women, girls and children born outside marriage, acknowledges that Oloo is in a very difficult situation. 

 
“If he dies, there is nowhere to bury him. If his wife or child dies, he has nowhere to take the body. The only person who accepts him is sick and about to die. Compared to the other children who seek help from CEWOCHR to reunite them with their birthparents, in Oloo’s case, there is no mother or father in the picture,” she says. 

Alyano says the young man’s case came to her on referral from the police’s Child and Family Protection Unit in Lira City. She believes Oloo’s situation would have been different if a man had adopted him. 

“In Lango, customary land is entrusted to men. Abonyo does not have private property and she lives on the charity of her brothers. The only solution now is to empower him to stand on his own, buy his own land, and start his own clan,” she advises.

The young man feels grief over the denial of a relationship with his birthparents and the loss of family connection with his adoptive relatives.

“I do not have parents, but I have hope that my relatives exist somewhere. And I will find them. I call on God to hear my prayers because He is all I have,” Oloo says quietly. 

Most of Ugandan society is patrilineal and kinship is traced through a father’s lineage. In this culture, authority, property, and kinship pass through the father’s line. Only people related to the males in the family can inherit names and titles. 

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