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OPINION

By Mariam Wangadya

I write this with a broken heart. “One-year-old boy killed in ritual murder,” read a devastating headline in the New Vision of April 5, 2024.

Brutally and mercilessly beheaded, genitally mutilated and his stomach slit open, this innocent child’s remains were dumped in a pit latrine! How inhuman!

Just a few days ago, two sisters; a five-year-old and a two-year-old in Kiboga district were beheaded in a suspected ritual murder.

In 2021, a 30-year-old ‘pastor’ in Jinja district murdered his landlord’s four-year-old daughter in a ritual murder. It is even more disheartening to learn that parents kill their children in pursuit of wealth. More recently, last November, a 28-year-old woman killed her two children in a ritual murder in Jinja district. These cases are among the hundreds or even thousands of continuous disregard for the lives of innocent children by selfish individuals. Some documented, others not.

Uganda Police annual crime reports indicate that ritual sacrifices have been increasing; from 22 cases in 2019, to 45 in 2020, to 46 in 2021 and 72 in 2022.

The right to life is at the core of human dignity. Not only are we born equal as articulated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), but we are born with the right to enjoy the highest attainable quality of life, from which we derive all other rights.

This is the context within which any person who unlawfully takes away the life of another is severely dealt with under the law. This notwithstanding, the practice of ritual murders persistently appears to engulf our society.

Children that we are required to offer our protection as a community find themselves as innocent victims at the hands of merciless killers. Why? Perhaps it is time for us to seriously re-examine whether the current criminal justice system is working for the innocent victims.

One of the challenges to apprehending the perpetrators of these hideous crimes is Article 23(4) of the Constitution which requires suspects to be arraigned in court within 48 hours or released.

I have consistently argued that this constitutional requirement makes it very challenging for law enforcement officers to conduct thorough investigations and apprehend the perpetrators of these vicious crimes. Perhaps it is time to revisit this constitutional requirement in light of our realities. I am aware that this standard is informed by more developed nations with advanced criminal justice systems such as using forensic science during investigations.

To expect our Police to be able to match up to those standards and be ready to produce perpetrators in court within 48 hours sounds unreasonable.

Once these criminals are apprehended, the law must take its full force.

Perhaps capital offences ought not to be bailable. Rather than agitate for granting bail in such cases, let us support the criminal justice system in ensuring shorter pre-trial remand periods through the appointment of more judicial officers, criminal sessions across the country and prioritising hearings of these cases.

As Uganda observes a moratorium on the death sentence, perhaps it is time for us to debate whether indeed there are situations that require the death penalty. In my humble view, murderers who kill innocent and helpless children are deserving of the strictest punishment.

A life once taken cannot be returned and no amount of compensation will ever truly compensate a parent that has lost their child forever.

It is a fundamental legal tenet that punishment should match the crime. The promotion of human rights requires that we are serious about fighting crime.

This can only be done, if a stern message is sent out that murder in all its forms is totally unacceptable and is met with the strongest deterrent.

The writer is the chairperson, Uganda Human Rights Commission