BY JOEL KAGUTA
Kasese district has stepped in to address defilement and other child related abuses by instructing the Community Development Officers to keenly watch out for the perpetrators.
Information obtained by Rwenzori Daily indicates that the district is struggling hard to wipe out the vices they believe retards growth and development.
Zainabu Asiimwe, the District Senior Probation Social and welfare officer confirms the regrettable incidents of abuse against children.
Asiimwe says her office has so far registered 153 cases of defilement, 3424 other child related abuses including child abandonment, neglect and torture by parents and relatives.
“It’s true my office has registered many development cases, 127 defilement cases were committed in the first and 26 cases have been registered in this second lockdown”, said Asiimwe.
The cases were recorded between March last year to date. Others include 8 cases of men who have impregnated their biological daughters.
According to Asiimwe, her officer swung into action after learning about the incidents and some of the perpetrators who impregnated their own children were detained as her office together with police continue hunting for the remaining culprits.
About defilement, she adds that only 17 cases have been handled and the remaining cases have been referred to the Resident State Attorney for advice.
Now, Asiimwe reveals that to end the vices, her officer has directed all Community Development Officers across the district to arrest both perpetrators and parents who tempt to settle cases of defilement privately.
‘We can’t see such dubious vices happening in our society and we keep quite, let us all play our part because they(children) are all our son’s and daughters”, Asiimwe said.
James Muthulhanda Katalikawe, the sub county chairperson for Bugoye which is among the most affected sub counties in the district calls for string measures like life imprisonment of people he said were behaving like beasts by having affairs with their own children.
“Let those arrested act as an example to the rest of the community members because those defiling our daughters should be excommunicated from the community”, Mr. Katalikawe said.
He quickly warns family heads who sympathize with the defilers in his areas of jurisdiction to immediately stop the habit before the long arm of government lands on them.
But, Busongora North Member of Parliament, Hon. Sowedi Kitanywa advices family heads to play their responsibilities of providing basic neeccities to their families so that young boys who utilize the parent’s failure to provide to his children are not deceiving these young girls with gifts which they pay in exchange of sex.
“I know our families are living below poverty line but this should not allow parents to relent their duties and leave their children especially girls in the hands of young boys who are deceiving our girls with gifts.
Jackline Mbambu aged 20 who was impregnated in 2017 while in senior two at Kasese High school in Kasese town told this reporter that life becomes rough when you concieve at a tender age.
Mbambu, a resident of Ibanda II cell in Ibanda-kyanya Town Council explains that her boyfriend denied the pregnancy yet before she concieved the boy was purported to be loving the young girl.
She now regrets allowing the boy to ruin her future of becoming a doctor after completing her educational levels. Mbambu together with her four year old son stay at her parents home.
Mbambu advice you g girls especially school going children to say no to immature relationship instead to continue with their studies for a better life.
“I regret having been misled by my classmates who convinced me to have a boyfriend so that I also started getting new items like new dresses and other small things I needed in my life, because the cost of losing education is so painful”, Mbambu narrated.
Asked whether she plans to go back to school, Mbambu emotionally shed tears and reveals that she had enrolled and trained in shoe making so that she gets what to support her son and her life.
