KAMPALA, Uganda
Kampala Capital City Authority City Hall court has sent more than 100 Karamojong mothers back to Napak for rehabilitation and to serve a one-month community service sentence for sending their children to the streets to beg.
The Karamojong are a Nilotic
ethnic group, agro-pastoral herders living mainly in the north-east of Uganda. According
to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in 2019 reported that Karamoja suffers the
highest poverty rate of 60.2 percent, way above Uganda's national average
of 21.4 percent.
Magistrate, Edgar Karakire
found the mothers guilty of sending children to beg in a public place. They
have been on remand in Luzira prison for three weeks.
In June 2022, City Council
passed a Children's Protection Ordinance which makes it punishable for one to
send children on the streets to beg.
They were rounded up by City Council law enforcement officers from various streets in the city ahead of preparations for the recently concluded NAM and G77 conferences in Kampala.
They were arraigned before the
court for plea-taking and later remanded to prison after pleading not guilty to
the charge against them.
At City Hall court, the women
who were carrying their children, however, pleaded guilty and asked the court
for leniency, arguing that they had not wasted the court's time.
They also asked to be sent
back to Napak to start a new life with their children.
The court accepted their pleas
since City Council prosecutor, Hillary Musiimenta, left it to the court's
discretion to hand an appropriate punishment.
Karakire noted that the
offence of sending children to beg on the streets is so rampant but considered
the mothers' plight some of whom are widows and have no source of income to
look after the children.
Although the offence attracts
a maximum jail term of six months upon conviction, the magistrate ordered that
they be returned to Napak for rehabilitation and also do community service as a
punishment. He further cautioned them against sending their children back to
the streets.
The court also ordered that in
case the mothers fail to serve their punishment, they will be jailed for one
month.
This is not the first time
that the Karamojong mothers have been convicted by the same court over the same
charges.
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