The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Lamwo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The police in Lamwo district have arrested five suspects for attempting to illegally ferry 48 children to work as casual laborers in commercial sugarcane plantations in Bunyoro and Busoga regions.
The suspects were arrested on Wednesday evening from Agoro sub-county after police intercepted their truck, a Fuso registration UAE 568Q loaded with minors comprised of boys and girls.
The children all below 18 years were reportedly mobilized by the suspects from the villages of Pakinyi, Polongo A&B, Logu-Paracele, Tegot Kwera and Logede all in Ruddi Parish Agoro sub-county.
A local leader in Agoro sub-county who didn’t want to be named to freely speak said that the suspects arrived in Agoro sub-county trading center on Wednesday evening at about 7:30 pm.
He says the suspects used a pickup vehicle to ferry the minors they had recruited from the various villages to an assembling point in Agoro trading center.
According to him, once all the recruited minors were assembled, a Fuso truck sped towards the trading center where the children started rushing to board.
“When these children started rushing to board the vehicle, people within the trading center became concerned, they wondered where they were being taken and who was spearheading their travels. The police were called in and that’s how some were arrested while others fled off,” he said.
Jimmy Patrick Okema, Aswa River Region Police Spokesperson says that some of the children had been recruited in Madi-Opei sub-county. Okema says the suspects whose addresses and identities are not clear hadn’t informed the local authorities, security personnel and even parents of the children in the process of exploiting the children.
He says police were tipped about their activities before they were intercepted and arrested adding that they are being detained at Agoro police post pending further investigation.
Okema says preliminary reports indicate the children were being transported to a sugar plantation in Masindi district.
He notes that the vice is being fuelled by abject poverty in the region and appealed to the locals to desist from accepting offers from individuals who target young children as labourers in plantations.
Madi-Opei sub-county LC III chairperson Charles Obong Okwera says they have already informed the security personnel within the sub-county to be on high alert over possibilities that some of the children could have been recruited in their area.
Okwera says preliminary reports indicate that the children were being taken to sugarcane plantations in Jinja and Hoima districts.
High poverty levels in Northern Uganda and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have left devastating impacts on the livelihoods of many households in the region, exposing young children to early struggles to fend for themselves and their families.
Although there are no official statistics, the Northern and North-eastern areas of Uganda comprised of Teso, Lango, Acholi, and West Nile regions account for one of the highest rates of child labour exploitation by commercial plantations across the country.
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