POLICE | CRIME | DEFILEMENT 

BUIKWE - Residents of Kitula village in Ssi-Bukunja sub-county, Buikwe district were left in shock when they received news of allegations that a fellow resident had been defiling his daughter for the last six years. 

Fred Baziwe allegedly went into hiding after learning that his village mates had discovered that he had allegedly defiled and impregnated his 13-year-old daughter. 

The girl said her father was responsible for the pregnancy since she had never had sexual relations with any other person. 

“Whenever we went to the garden with my siblings, he would come and send them away and force me to have sex with him. I sometimes would report him to my mother, but she has never done anything about it,” she said.

Police are yet to arrest the suspect. 

Other cases 

This is not the only case at hand. A 10-year-old girl was last week confirmed pregnant after her mother took her to the Police. 

The girl said a witch doctor who offered free treatment to her mother, Annet Kyofuna, a resident of Kyawanvubu cell in Namataba town council, Mukono district, forced her into sexual relations at the beginning of the first lockdown last year. 

Kyofuna is a single mother of four. She said her husband abandoned the family when she fell sick. She said she did not know that Ssalongo  Ramathan Ssegawa, who resides in the neighbouring Ggalabi Cell, was defiling her daughter. 

“When I asked Ssegawa how much money I was supposed to pay for my treatment, he said he would bill me after I am completely healed. I did not know that something else was going on,” Kyofuna said. 

She said although she had reported the matter to the Police in Namataba in time, the officers asked her for money to arrest the suspect, who has since gone into hiding. 

Efforts to find out how far the Police had gone with investigations into the case were futile as the officers at Namataba Police Station refused to address the media. Kyofuna said she was afraid that her daughter could have been infected with HIV. 

“I have been advised to go to the hospital and have an HIV test done on my daughter, but I do not even have transport,” she said. 

Stephen Katabalwa, the Kyaggwe county education officer, said among the children who were studying  under the Kabaka Education Fund throughout Mukono and Buikwe districts before the lockdown, at least 200 have been confirmed pregnant.

Katabalwa said the big number comes from the fishing community at Kiyindi landing site in Kiyindi town council and Ssenyi landing site in  Ssi-Bukunga sub-county in Buikwe district.

“Some have already given birth.  Many went through caesarean section and some babies did not survive since the mothers were so young,” he said.

Elizabeth Nawoza, the Mukono Division Police officer in charge of the gender-based violence (GBV) department, said she records more than 30 cases of sexual harassment among children below 17 years of age every month. She said many of the victims are defiled by their relatives.