Forgotten Mothers in Uganda
Defiled.abandoned by a ‘boda boda’ man
Sylvia Nakalongo, aged 19 walks with her hands because she was born disabled. She has a one-and-half-year-old lovely daughter she cannot lift due to her physical incapability.
The only easier means of transport she is left to use when there are no taxis is a motorcycle a.k.a. boda boda and since she has no job, there are many times when she has no money and is left stranded, immobile.
The calm-looking single parent uses boda bodas not out of choice, but rather due to lack of it—choice. Yet it is that same means of transport that once piled more misery in her life with her physical disability, especially in a society where the disabled are highly discriminated by many.
Nakalongo now has to look after a child she had never planned for, and whose father she does not know nor can ever trace. All she knows is her daughter’s father, a motorcyclist then, raped and abandoned her on one such an agonizing day
10-year old Colombian girl gives birth
HALEA is currently campaigning against cultural practices that lead to child motherhood,
At 10 years old, I didn’t even know what sexual intercourse was. At 10 years old, I was not sexually developed enough to have a baby. At 10 years old, I was in 4th grade. Girls’ menstrual cycles and reproductive capabilities weren’t even instructed in my school until 7th grade.
Let us not be so naive as to say that the girl was pregnant and gave birth due to the practices of her tribe and her culture. A child should be allowed to be a child. A child should not be subjected to having sex – or worse, to be sexually assaulted, and then bear the responsibility of having a baby while still a child herself.
What is the world aiming for here – to lower the age at which females give birth to 9 years old or 8 years old? Is 10 years old not young enough? Culture or no culture, girls being required to or forced to be sexually active – and to become mothers as a result of it at a very young age – is wrong, immoral, and criminal.
Still not safe to be a mother in Uganda
Today is Mother’s Day! This day was set aside to honour mothers, motherhood, the maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is therefore only right that as we remember our mothers for bringing us forth to the world, we also reflect on the challenges mothers face as they play this very important natural duty.
This week, Save the Children, an international organisation dedicated to the welfare of children, released its 14th State of the World’s Mothers Report. The report measures the best and worst countries to be born and to be a mother.
Using two indexes – the Birthday Risk Index that measures the chances of first day survival of new-born babies and the Mothers Index which measures the chances of mother and child wellness and survival – it ranks the best and worst countries to be a mother or to be born.
Uganda, as we may all have feared, is among the worst 50 countries to be born in and to be a mother. According to the report, 15,100 children in Uganda die on their very first day of life from causes that are 75 per cent preventable and avoidable! And equally bad, we lose an average of 130,900 children under five years, again majorly to preventable causes. And specifically for mothers, one in every 49 mothers is likely to die while giving birth!
These are unacceptable statistics and one would expect that the government, which must be fully aware of the magnitude of this problem would do all it takes to reverse this sad situation. Yet just a week to the release of this report, the government announced a huge cut in the ministry of Health budget to cater for ostentation of State House and Defence.
We invite our political leaders making such ignominious decisions to use this Mothers’ Day to reflect a little more on the dire situation facing our mothers, unborn and newly born children so their decisions are guided by not just their political survival but the survival and continuity of our society.
No mother deserves to die while bringing forth life and no new life should die when it could have been easily prevented.
The Ten Commitments
