Why We Work in Karamoja, Uganda

WHY DO WE WORK IN KARAMOJA?

The district of Karamoja is situated in north eastern Uganda; bordered by Kenya on the east, and south Sudan to the North. Almost the size of a small country, it covers 10 % of the country, with a total area of nearly 30,000 square kilometres and a population of 1,315,218 people.

Children on the Edge Africa has been working in Masese III, a slum community outside Jinja, Uganda, since 2016, facilitating one of our six original Child Protection Teams.

The residents here mainly consist of ‘Karamajong’ nomadic people from the Karamoja district who have moved away from their home district to Jinja (around 396 km away). Because of their nomadic wandering lifestyle, most Karamajong have little understanding of child protection and tend to let their children roam with no adult supervision.

Babra, from COTE Africa is standing with two men and 5 older children in a homestead in Karamoja, the ground is dusty and dry and a fence made of sticks surrounds the group

Babra from COTE Africa (in green) meeting with community members in Lopei district in 2022

Babra Nandawula, Social Worker at Children on the Edge Africa says “We have observed their lifestyles and learnt a lot about their culture, as they do most things based on their ways from back home. We have noticed that they do not focus so much on the needs of their children. If a child of two years can feed him or herself, then they are often left to fend for themselves.”

The Child Protection Team in Masese III has recruited and trained Karamojong members, connected with Karamojong leaders, and created incredible transformation over the years with regard to child protection in the community. However, as the influx of arrivals from Karamoja continues, so do the prevailing habits of child abuse and neglect.

As a result, in 2022 we decided it was time to find out why so many people leave Karamoja, what causes this damaging approach to their own children and what could be done about it.

Babra Nandawula explains, “Those who come in come with the same behaviours which the other ones had at the start, so we felt that it would serve us better if we also established Child Protection Teams in the Karamoja region itself, and sensitised* them from the root, where they come from, so that they also are aware of child rights and respect them, because what they do at present is violating the rights of children”.

* provide training and encourage the change of mindsets through relationships and ongoing discussion and conversation.

THE NEED IN KARAMOJA

Two older Ugandan men are crouched on the floor wearing yellow shirts holding a black plastic bag full of maize

Maize provision for families in Napak, where people struggle to find enough to eat.

The focus of our work in Karamoja is starting out in Napak, one of nine districts in the region, and identified as one of the areas most at risk. Like most of the districts, people here are mainly agro-pastoralist, practising subsistence crop production and semi-nomadic livestock rearing.

Staff from Children on the Edge Africa spent time talking with local communities and their leaders in Napak, along with NGOs, child protection workers and officials in the area. Their main findings were as follows:

People are hungry - Karamoja is a hot, desert-like area, and one of the poorest districts in Uganda. For a large swathe of the eastern portion, there are no longer any seasons, so the soil is relatively infertile and the land is given over for cattle. The western greenbelt has grassland more suitable for agriculture, yet much of it is left idle. All these factors have led to famine conditions, which are currently lessening in severity, but people are still dying.

Children are neglected - For generations, people here have largely relied on cattle and herding livestock, with a pastoralist culture so strong that they often value cows more than children. Those older than babies or toddlers are not cared for, but left to wander outside, and few are sent to school.

Children are abused - There is a high rate of sexual abuse and assault, and arranged marriages are agreed for girls as young as two years old, who are then married by 13. Most perpetrators can rape with impunity, especially in the case of ‘courtship’ rape, where a man or boy will rape a girl they like the look of, who will then be forced to marry them.

Children are trafficked - Trafficking is rife in the area. Between Jan - June 2022 there were 172 children trafficked by only 17 perpetrators (143 were girls). Many children are taken to Somalia for organ harvesting or Nairobi for prostitution and begging, then discarded back in their villages. Others are taken to beg on the streets in Ugandan towns like Jinja, Mbale, Busia and Kampala.

Crime levels are high - Incidence of domestic and gender based violence are common and children often run away to escape it. Out of doors, groups of armed cattle rustlers will not hesitate to kill people that come across their paths, viewing them as bad omens. In general, movement outside the hours of 8.00am - 4.00pm is deemed to be too dangerous.

Police can’t give protection - There is little challenge to this crime rate as there are only two police stations in the whole district, with people living in remote homesteads spaced many miles apart. People do not have the means to report crimes and police don’t have fuel to pursue or collect criminals and witnesses.