WASHINGTON, January 27, 2011—Taxpayers would like to believe that U.S. humanitarian aid promotes human rights and fights poverty around the world, but in countries like Uganda, U.S. aid brings little to no changes to the lives of child trafficking victims.
According to a Guardian report, the Ugandan government appointed a special taskforce to combat trafficking and ritual sacrifice. It also announced that 2000 police officers would receive special training to combat child trafficking and ritual sacrifice in 2009. The U.S. government took part in equipping the taskforce according to the same report.
However, Uganda’s anti-trafficking and ritual sacrifice taskforce suffers from lack of resources. Also, the taskforce hardly performs an organized operation specifically targeting trafficking as a crime.
In an exclusive interview with the Communities@WashingtonTimes.com, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga, the founder of an anti-child sacrifice organization, Kyampisi Ministries (KCM), says “I am not sure how many policemen work for taskforce or if they were even trained to investigate human trafficking and sacrifice cases. But I don’t think that the Ugandan police have an operational task force to curb human trafficking or ritual sacrifice. “
Since 2009, when the Ugandan authorities established the anti-trafficking and ritual sacrifice taskforce, Pastor Peter says that there has been one man with a desk who is responsible for taking care of child trafficking cases happening nationwide, “Mr. Binoga has many junior officers working under him. But, he told us that he doesn’t have the resources to run a task force and facilitate it. When I asked him how our organization could assist him to investigate a particular case two weeks ago, he just said that he lacked the resources for the investigation.”
In 2009, Uganda received $ 273,186 in development aid from the U.S. government.
In 2006, it received $1.966 million from the U.S. government to combat trafficking in the country.
The BBC recently reported police recorded 38 cases of child sacrifice since 2006. The Ugandan anti-trafficking taskforce claimed to BBC that child trafficking for ritual killing has slowed down.
However, Peter stated that between October 2011 and January 2012 alone, his organization registered 39 cases of child trafficking for ritual sacrifices.
“I think Mr. Binoga means trained officers and funding to handle cases related to trafficking by resources. But for a taskforce to manage the whole country, we are talking about huge funding.”
Because police refuse to investigate ritual sacrifice cases on their own, Pastor Peter provides transportation and food for any police officer to investigate each case. He also give personal allowance to the policeman for ongoing investigation.
On the day of his interview with Communities@WashingtonTimes.com, Pastor Peter said that he spent approximately 143 dollars on a recent investigation.
Earlier this week, Pastor Peter officiated another funeral of a 3 years old boy. The boy died during the ritual sacrifice last week. This year, Pastor Peter hopes to bring more international attention to fight child sacrifice in Uganda.
For donation and more information visit http://www.kyampisi.org/KCM/
Youngbee Dale is a freelance writer, researcher, and policy analyist. You can reach her at ybdale@gmail.com or follow her on facebook and Twitter
Read more about child sacrifice in Uganda:
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The worst form of human trafficking
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