ENACT LAW ON CHILD SACRIFICE

ENACT LAW ON CHILD RITUAL SACRIFICE
Each day newspaper headlines carry stories of a slain child, a kidnapped toddler or a foiled attempt at dissapearing an infant on grounds that the said would be victim had marks of ever having split blood. Parents now had to endure the pain of pinning the ears of their children including boys not as a luxurious expression of beautifacation but of one of neccesity to safeguard their children from monstrous natives keen on earning a quick buck by murdering innocent children in the name of appeasing spirits to accumulate wealth.
A recent ANPPCAN report reveals a lot about the current state of children especially on child sacrifice. The 2008 Uganda Human Rights Commision report has classified the issues as an emergent human rights catastrophe. Parents like their children now live in constant fear of these criminals and this has affected their lifestyles. The morning and evening traffic jam on main city routes is caused by a delibarate attempt by parents to see their children safe to and from their points of study. Consequently schools have been fortified like military barracks and parents with children in boarding schools have to endure a rigorous identification exercise for the safety of their children just because some crooks in society are so desparate as to postpone reasoning to kill for money. Children are no longer free to play at ease without keen watchmen for their safety.Most intriguing is the fact that parents or people related to the children have been reported to be some of the leading accomplices in the ritual murder cases and the rampant kidnappings in the country. Ugandan society is increasingly becoming not only unjust but also unsafe to the children.
Yet something can be done to curb this growing insecurity with the goodwill of all concerned stakeholders. The light in the darkness is the enactment of an anti-ritual sacrifice law to strengthen the fight against this criminality. While there has ben considerable work done in reporting cases and interesting the intervention of prosecution, there’s still a lacunae in describing the criminality and thereby prescribing the appropriate punishment. Accused persons are charged with murder and manslaughter and accorded undeserving treatment. A focus group constituting of the Police anti-ritual murder Unit, Traditional healers body, ministry of education, child rights advocacy organisations and the law society should be formed to formulate a law to strengthen the existing weak laws. With a law in place, government can be able to pass guidelines to operationalise the law to safeguard the children.
Moses Kalanzi
The author works with Daniels Dream Uganda, a child welfare organisation.
mkalanzi@gmail.com