I spent a week in Uganda at the end of January. The
traveling-parent curse struck once again and Jude got sick with Hand, Mouth, and
Foot disease. Fun times for Joe, but he managed like a rock star. He allowed me to focus on my trip, and my time there was good. Pretty great actually.
I was a bit reluctant to go to Uganda. Last time I traveled
to the region was 2008 when I volunteered in Eastern DR Congo and that left
quite a few bitter memories. Mind you, not bitter memories of the people there
but of my and other NGOs’ presence and lack of relevance. You can read more
about this time here. I was afraid Uganda feel the same, where locals
resent NGOs, resent their staff and their presence. But I was surprised to see
that, despite the huge amount of white people in the capital, there were no aggressiveness
or outward disdain –I’m not saying it isn’t there. I’m saying I didn’t feel it.
My boss was to arrive on the same flight as mine but he got
stuck on the East Coast for an extra day due to the snow storm. So I spent the
first day in the office. I read about the situation of children in the country.
And my mind was blown! I should have done my research before departure but I
didn’t, and in a way it was more shocking and heart wrenching to read the
statistics in country. A few examples: Out of the 90% of children who enter
primary school only 30% finish. Most children drop out between grade 5 and 7.
Boys drop off mainly because of boredom. But girls… girls leave because they’re
married early, are pregnant, or are afraid to go to school. More than 70% of
pupils report being physically and sexually assaulted and the vast majority of
perpetrators is male teachers. Most children also report not being fed enough
and being beaten or emotionally abused at home. And a lot of children report
living in fear of kidnapping. That’s the main focus of our project: preventing
kidnapping leading to ritual murders, also called child sacrifice.
You read that right. Child sacrifice. A child –usually very young,
usually male- is snatched from his or her home, driven away in the bush, brutally
wacked by machetes (depending on the situation, witch doctors can request fingers,
genitals, or a head), and left to die. It’s gruesome and traumatic. Survivors and
their families have terrible scars –physical and emotional- and some grieving
families completely fall apart. Our project has put in place a sort of Amber
Alert so that kidnapped children can be found and rescued before they are hurt.
We also hold community discussions and training on positive parenting, child
rights and child protection, and on debunking myths that allow the demand for
body parts to remain or increase. Our project manager there has done miracles
engaging community members, including perpetrators, and on changing what we
call “social norms”, what people consider normal but is actually detrimental to
children –think beating a child as a way to discipline him or her.
My boss and I were directly confronted with these issues
twice in the same day: in the morning while visiting the local office, a phone
call came in notifying the project manager that the body of a 13-year old girl
had been found that morning. She was missing fingers and other body parts and
was left in a sugar cane plantation. We later learnt that her family didn’t
report her disappearance. In the afternoon we met a child survivor, a little
girl of 4 who was kidnapped when she was 2 but was rescued without a scratch because
her amazing 4-year old brother, whom we believe was the child they actually
wanted to get, ran from home to home until he found someone who triggered the
Amber Alert. While walking to the child’s home, we heard a child scream and cry
and we all witnessed a mom violently beating her daughter with a cane –the cane
actually broke. The little girl was sobbing and her ear was bleeding. In our
organization we are mandated reporters so the Ugandan staff talked to the mom,
took pictures, and reported the abuse to the local authorities. On our way back
from the survivor’s home, we walked past that home again. The mom had left to
fetch water and the little girl, who was 6, was taking care of her baby sister,
who couldn’t be older than 2 months old, along with a few of her siblings. She
said her mom beat her up because she woke up the baby from her nap. There were
9 children in the family, all rather young. It was heartbreaking to know that
the mom didn’t have the proper resources to care for her children –neither material
nor emotional- or moral barriers preventing her from beating her child –she did
this when her door was open! As a matter of fact the daughter’s ear bled
because she had an injury from a previous beating that never healed. This
happens all the time.
(I took this picture from the car. These children are representative of the children I'm talking about.)
As outsider it’s so hard to know how to stop these practices
–from beating a child as a means to discipline them to the terrible crime of
murdering children for rituals supposed to bring good fortune and wealth.
Fortunately, our Ugandan colleagues are leading the charge and are changing the
way children are treated. I’m so proud of our organization for tackling these
issues and for supporting these projects. On a personal level I’m so lucky to be
involved in this work with the most vulnerable children. We’re doing amazing work slowly changing minds
and hearts, attitudes and behaviors. We are allowing children to have a
childhood filled with play, school, and love -and, most importantly, to live a childhood free from fear.
