If this was a well-kept secret, it is an elephant. Tracing the innocent young victim of circumstance and saving him from the cocoon of conservativeness and fire judgement, was not for the heart fainted.
On our journey to Budaka, roads led us to Kavule Village Kakoli Subcounty where we tracked a family with suspicions of incest incidence which led to a new unusual human being at home, let’s call him JOHN to avoid stigma.
Incest is an inappropriate sexual activity within the family. It includes relationships between the father and children, the mother and children, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, and uncles and aunts with nephews and nieces. The average age of incest victims is approximately 11 years old, with the majority of victims experiencing their first encounter between the ages of 5 and 8. Incest is rarely a one-time incident.
It evolves over time into various types of sexual activity. Incestuous families typically lack social skills and are often isolated from contact with community organizations and other families. The parents are usually not happy with themselves or with each other.
By Ugandan standards, you would expect people to have big hearts. They are welcoming, warm-hearted, and hospitable people who not only give a place on their dining table but have loads of respect for their guests as well.
On reaching Kavule, it was the opposite, the Bravo Shoes Community Support Team was welcomed with interrogations and suspicious eyes. Usually, there is no road in the home according to the African setting but this was the opposite. Something here was not going right!
With courtesy we identified ourselves and why we had come.
“How are you,” Yesigye Bravo greeted a young man in a white sleeve with shots. Did he respond positively with an intriguing question? On why we are here! Before Madina Nawula the 48-year-old grandmother and the head of the homestead came into the picture.
Where is John? They bring John, a 7-year-old boy!
How are you, John? Am fine, he replies
Do you want to go to school; he says yes! Before his grandmother shows up!
“Am the grandmother, his mum is not home, she got married elsewhere. We don’t know the father of John but I can’t abandon him,” she said before explaining the circumstances which forced her daughter to disappear from home.
The family of sixteen members lost a father a few years ago. It has homesteads with the main home and seven other grass-thatched houses belonging to grown-up youths.
One of John’s uncles Maki Abubakar said that his sister, Aisa Naula got pregnant between 2012 and 2013 while she was in Primary 7.
“She got at 16 years, she got ashamed because she still in school and decided to keep quiet on who is responsible for the pregnancy. She didn’t tell us, when they press her, she said she will commit suicide if they keep asking her,” Maki explained.
However, neither Madina nor Maki rule out the possibility of incest unfortunately for her according to the family, Aisa refused to speak up and went on to get married where she gave birth to 3 other children before she left that marriage to go and exile herself in Kampala.
“We left her and we chose to take care of the kid. We have never seen anyone claiming paternity,” Madina explained with concern.
Asked if the cases are common in Budaka, Madina further explained in the affirmative without ruling out that her stepdaughter could have been the victim as well.
“These cases are common here; it could be true but we have no proof yet. People here do these things,” she added.
In order to confirm this allegation, the Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation team headed to the Town Council where we caught up with the area LC 1 Chairperson Changu Yakobo.
Yakobo confirmed that in his village of over 800 people, some incest cases have been reported and some of them have been handled in secrecy within the family because people are over-congested in the houses.
“We asked the girl but she said she doesn’t know the owner of the pregnancy. We tell our families to be responsible, where we get cases like these, we punish them. I have so far handled one case in my office in the last 8 years but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen,” he said
Yacobo was happy with the BCSO gesture of taking John to school and applauded the organisation and its efforts to change communities.
John will be taken care of by the Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation team and the school will be identified soon. He dropped out of school during Covid 19 lockdown and he has since not been able to return to difficulties surrounding him.
Recently media reported, a family in Mbale -Eastern Uganda was in turmoil following allegations of incest between a prominent sheikh and his daughter.
Mariam Nagudi accused her husband Sheikh Abdul Karimu Ssemakula of neglecting her and shifting his affection to his 17-year-old daughter Halima Namakula (not a real name).
Under Section 149 of the Penal Code Act, incest is an offence punishable by 7 years in prison. however, if the other person is below 18 years old, the sentence is life in prison. The section stipulates that a person commits incest if they have sexual intercourse with another person with whom, they are biologically related.
The 2014 Annual Police and Traffic Report shows that in 2014, there was an increase of 25 cases of incest compared to 2013. 57 cases were reported in 2014 and 32 in 2013.
In 2017, Police has recorded up to 13 cases of incest in its office in Namutumba district in Eastern Uganda. However, elders say that many of these cases are not reported to the police.