Posted Tuesday, June 19 2012 at 00:00
In Summary
A team will be set up to track adopted children so as to minimise
trafficking.
Government has issued new guidelines for adopting children as a measure to
stop increasing child trafficking as the country joined the rest of the world to mark the Day of the African Child on Friday.
According to the new guidelines, government is going to set up District
Alternative parents at all districts in the country to vet documents of obtaining an adoption certificate
before obtaining the certificate from court.
“Smooth operators manage to rush the process in courts to get certificates
and get children for trafficking,” Mr Mortz Magall, the head of Orphans and Vulnerable Children
National Implementation unit at the gender ministry said in Entebbe. He said
they will also set up national panels for alternative care to follow up children
who will be adopted to reduce cases of child trafficking in Uganda.
Child trafficking
Ugandan children are trafficked within the country, as well as to Canada,
Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia for forced labour and
commercial sexual exploitation according to reports. Unicef puts the number of children trafficked internally and
externally at 1.2 million.
Government released crime statistics for 2007, which indicated that child
trafficking crimes had increased over the previous year with 54 children
kidnapped, abducted, or stolen during the year. Share This Story
Huys Link Community Initiative Executive Director Moses Matovu said there is
need to break barriers to look at disabled children who are denied right to
quality education because of their
impairment. “It has become clear that disabled children have unique
characteristics, interest, abilities and learning needs that without exclusive
interventions, the doctrine of
education for all shall be in vain,” he said.
He urged the Ministry of Education
to consider buying brails, have infrastructure that accommodates physically
impaired children and have teachers who consider disabled children in all
schools in the country.
mssebuyira@ug.nationmedia.com
