AP, Masaka :
Would a 15-year-old girl be married off by her parents in violation of the law? Would another girl, who looks even younger, get justice after an alleged statutory rape at the hands of an older man?
In their impoverished communities in Uganda, the answers hinged on the fact that one girl had a birth certificate and the other didn’t. Police foiled the planned marriage after locating paperwork that proved the first girl was not 18 as her parents claimed. The other girl could not prove she was under the age of consent; her aunt, who’s also her guardian, has struggled to press charges against the builder who seduced and impregnated her.
“The police were asking me many questions about proof of the girl’s birth date,” said the aunt, Percy Namirembe, sitting in her tin-roofed shantytown home in Masaka near the shores of Lake Victoria in south-central Uganda. “I don’t have evidence showing the victim is not yet 18.”
As Namirembe spoke, her niece sat beside her, her belly swollen and a vacant stare on her face.
“They could end up invisible,” said Joanne Dunn, a child protection specialist with UNICEF.
With support from UNICEF and various non-governmental organizations, many of the worst-affected countries have worked to improve their birth registration rates. In Uganda, volunteers go house to house in targeted villages, looking for unregistered children. Many babies are born at home, missing out on registration procedures that are being modernized at hospitals and health centers.
Would a 15-year-old girl be married off by her parents in violation of the law? Would another girl, who looks even younger, get justice after an alleged statutory rape at the hands of an older man?
In their impoverished communities in Uganda, the answers hinged on the fact that one girl had a birth certificate and the other didn’t. Police foiled the planned marriage after locating paperwork that proved the first girl was not 18 as her parents claimed. The other girl could not prove she was under the age of consent; her aunt, who’s also her guardian, has struggled to press charges against the builder who seduced and impregnated her.
“The police were asking me many questions about proof of the girl’s birth date,” said the aunt, Percy Namirembe, sitting in her tin-roofed shantytown home in Masaka near the shores of Lake Victoria in south-central Uganda. “I don’t have evidence showing the victim is not yet 18.”
As Namirembe spoke, her niece sat beside her, her belly swollen and a vacant stare on her face.
“They could end up invisible,” said Joanne Dunn, a child protection specialist with UNICEF.
With support from UNICEF and various non-governmental organizations, many of the worst-affected countries have worked to improve their birth registration rates. In Uganda, volunteers go house to house in targeted villages, looking for unregistered children. Many babies are born at home, missing out on registration procedures that are being modernized at hospitals and health centers.
