100 poor Uganda mothers jailed for sending children to beg on streets

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.