Do we need a law on cannibalism?
One would argue that exhuming a human body and eating it amounts to indignity to that body
By Chibita Wa Duallo
The only time people have close to sympathising with anybody who eats another human being was in a movie. The movie apparently is based on a true story of a South American sports team whose flight crashes in one of the snow-capped mountains. Some of the passengers die while others survive.
After days of waiting to be rescued they hear on one of their surviving links to civilisation – a radio set – that rescue efforts have been abandoned, as the rescuers don’t expect to find anymore survivors.
Without anymore supplies of food or anything else to munch when hunger sets in, they look around for what to eat and finally one of them proposes munching on the bodies of their dead colleagues. However, none of them could bring themselves to do such a thing, until the hunger becomes unbearable and eventually one by one they begin.
By the time they find their way out of that place, they have eaten quite a few kilograms of human flesh. They later admit that though they regretted having done it, without it they would have died.
Then there is the news of one of us in Mukono who was caught red-handed munching on roasted bits of flesh of the body of a three-year old who had died and been buried earlier. This is as disgusting as disgusting can be.
A number of people I know did not even want to read the story. Several protested about the picture of a roasted partly eaten body of a human being published in a mainstream newspaper. That is how gross cannibalism can be.
Eating the body of another human being is quite offensive and unacceptable to society. Indulging in it as a part time or as an alternative source of proteins when not compelled by any extraordinary circumstances is criminal.
One of the sections of the Penal Code that deals with this scenario actually covers the act rather by accident maybe because cannibalism has always been a remote possibility.
Cannibalism has always been talked about but nobody was ever sure whether it was reality or fiction.
Not many people could fathom why any person in their right frame of mind would resort to eating dead bodies of human beings when cows, goats and swine abound.
Section 115 of the Penal Code provides that whoever disinters, dissects or harms the dead body of any person is guilty of a misdemeanour. Misdemeanour being a relatively small offence compared to a felony. One wonders if cannibalism was borne in mind when this section was being drafted. One wonders what the drafters really meant by ‘harming a dead body’.
It is as if this section was intended to give protection to medical personnel who, by their training, have to deal with dead bodies upclose and dissect and study them. It also seems to have wanted to cover official exhumation of bodies and post mortem because the section criminalises disinterring, dissecting and harming a dead body that is done without lawful authority. In other words, all these acts can be done, but one needs lawful authority to do them.
The question that comes to mind concerns the phrase ‘harming a dead body’. Most people would argue that you couldn’t harm something that is incapable of feeling pain or suffering from the effects of the harm. In other words, we can use words like ‘harming’ the feelings of the relatives of the dead person or disrespecting the dead. But harming a dead body!
The section before this also provides for the offence of trespassing on burial places and ‘offering any indignity to any human corpse’.
One could definitely argue that exhuming the body of a human being with the intention of eating it and then proceeding to eat it amounts to indignity to a human corpse.
The Public Health Act also has some provisions relating to burying corpses and restrictions on when a body can be exhumed. The main thrust of this Act however seems to be aimed at containing the spread of infectious diseases. Hence it deals mostly with disposal of bodies whose death was as a result of an infectious disease.
Do we actually need a law on cannibalism? Or is it such a peripheral offence that is just symptomatic of something else. I notice that most of the people interviewed for the Mukono cannibalism story alluded to the fact that the criminal must have a mental problem. Should the commission of this act lead to a mandatory mental examination? What if the accused turns out to be perfectly healthy?
Some argue that people should just be careful with the dead bodies of their loved ones.
That is why cementing of graves came about, they argue.
They also point to the fact that in most villages, people sleep outside by the grave for weeks to prevent any likely cannibal from exhuming the body and eating it.
The only time people have close to sympathising with anybody who eats another human being was in a movie. The movie apparently is based on a true story of a South American sports team whose flight crashes in one of the snow-capped mountains. Some of the passengers die while others survive.
After days of waiting to be rescued they hear on one of their surviving links to civilisation – a radio set – that rescue efforts have been abandoned, as the rescuers don’t expect to find anymore survivors.
Without anymore supplies of food or anything else to munch when hunger sets in, they look around for what to eat and finally one of them proposes munching on the bodies of their dead colleagues. However, none of them could bring themselves to do such a thing, until the hunger becomes unbearable and eventually one by one they begin.
By the time they find their way out of that place, they have eaten quite a few kilograms of human flesh. They later admit that though they regretted having done it, without it they would have died.
Then there is the news of one of us in Mukono who was caught red-handed munching on roasted bits of flesh of the body of a three-year old who had died and been buried earlier. This is as disgusting as disgusting can be.
A number of people I know did not even want to read the story. Several protested about the picture of a roasted partly eaten body of a human being published in a mainstream newspaper. That is how gross cannibalism can be.
Eating the body of another human being is quite offensive and unacceptable to society. Indulging in it as a part time or as an alternative source of proteins when not compelled by any extraordinary circumstances is criminal.
One of the sections of the Penal Code that deals with this scenario actually covers the act rather by accident maybe because cannibalism has always been a remote possibility.
Cannibalism has always been talked about but nobody was ever sure whether it was reality or fiction.
Not many people could fathom why any person in their right frame of mind would resort to eating dead bodies of human beings when cows, goats and swine abound.
Section 115 of the Penal Code provides that whoever disinters, dissects or harms the dead body of any person is guilty of a misdemeanour. Misdemeanour being a relatively small offence compared to a felony. One wonders if cannibalism was borne in mind when this section was being drafted. One wonders what the drafters really meant by ‘harming a dead body’.
It is as if this section was intended to give protection to medical personnel who, by their training, have to deal with dead bodies upclose and dissect and study them. It also seems to have wanted to cover official exhumation of bodies and post mortem because the section criminalises disinterring, dissecting and harming a dead body that is done without lawful authority. In other words, all these acts can be done, but one needs lawful authority to do them.
The question that comes to mind concerns the phrase ‘harming a dead body’. Most people would argue that you couldn’t harm something that is incapable of feeling pain or suffering from the effects of the harm. In other words, we can use words like ‘harming’ the feelings of the relatives of the dead person or disrespecting the dead. But harming a dead body!
The section before this also provides for the offence of trespassing on burial places and ‘offering any indignity to any human corpse’.
One could definitely argue that exhuming the body of a human being with the intention of eating it and then proceeding to eat it amounts to indignity to a human corpse.
The Public Health Act also has some provisions relating to burying corpses and restrictions on when a body can be exhumed. The main thrust of this Act however seems to be aimed at containing the spread of infectious diseases. Hence it deals mostly with disposal of bodies whose death was as a result of an infectious disease.
Do we actually need a law on cannibalism? Or is it such a peripheral offence that is just symptomatic of something else. I notice that most of the people interviewed for the Mukono cannibalism story alluded to the fact that the criminal must have a mental problem. Should the commission of this act lead to a mandatory mental examination? What if the accused turns out to be perfectly healthy?
Some argue that people should just be careful with the dead bodies of their loved ones.
That is why cementing of graves came about, they argue.
They also point to the fact that in most villages, people sleep outside by the grave for weeks to prevent any likely cannibal from exhuming the body and eating it.