Unseen victims of death penalty

Children with parents on death row cry over stigma, suffering

Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | “Dear H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, we the children of parents who are on death row, we are on our knees requesting you to abolish the death penalty, because if they kill our parents, it will be us they will have killed.”

Dozens of children spoke those tearful words as they read their plea on Oct. 10 as they marked the 17th World Day against the Death Penalty.

This year’s World Day against the Death Penalty was marked at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative offices in Kampala under the theme: “Children: the unseen victims of the death penalty”. It was dedicated to children whose parents have been sentenced to death or executed.

“We are always the unseen victims because our parents leave us behind, our families abandon us and yet the government rarely does anything for us,” the children said, “You cannot punish a person who is dead but you punish a person who is alive.

“President Museveni should think about us before he signs the death penalty,” the children said in their written plea.

According to Article 3(1) of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interest of the child shall be a primary consideration.

President Yoweri Museveni has not signed an execution order for prisoners convicted of murder in the last 20 years but if his recent public statements are to go by, he might sign one soon.

Following the recent spate of murders of Ugandans; including the president’s nephew, Museveni has repeatedly asked the courts to give mandatory death sentences to people convicted of murder.

“You may commit a crime carelessly taking away the lives of others; however, you will also lose your own life,” Museveni said via social media on Sept.10 after images of his lifeless nephew, Joshua Rushegyera lying in a pool of blood along the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway, were published on both social and mainstream media on Sept. 05.

This was not the first time Museveni was reconsidering execution of people convicted of murder. In a statement which alarmed human rights groups in 2018, Museveni told judges at the annual judges’ conference that he regretted stopping executions in a “pre-industrial country.”

“I have been making the mistake of not sanctioning these death sentences. I am repenting,” Museveni said, “As you aspire for best international practices, you must be aware that societies like the UK went through the industrial revolution 200 years ago. Here in Uganda and Africa, we are dealing with pre-industrial societies.”

On Jan.19, this year, while passing out prison wardens in Kampala, Museveni said: “Criminals think they have a right to kill people and keep their heads. I am going to revise a bit and hang a few.”

It appears Museveni’s statements have sent chills down the spines of children of prisoners on death row.

At the FHRI event, tales of trauma and hopelessness were shared by children with parents on death row and those who are former death row, ex-convicts. A prison officer whose father, a former prisons officer was murdered, spoke of how he spent years guarding the prisoner on death row who committed the crime.

The main message appeared to be that the death penalty and the crimes associated with it indirectly stigmatize the families of those who have been sentenced to death or are executed. They face social isolation and rejection in life.