Bugiri district local council has tabled a child protection ordinance in an attempt to address poor parenting practices in the district.
The speaker of Bugiri district local council, Moses Kaziba, in an exclusive interview with Busoga Times’ Julius Mugabe said the ordinance will be fast tracked because the challenge at hand is dire.
Kaziba who chaired the council sitting on Tuesday said they resolved to come up with the ordinance due to the outcry of children who have been mistreated by parents and guardians.
According to Kaziba, parents are not providing basic necessities like education, shelter and clothing to children under their care. Child labour is another challenge that the ordinance addresses.
“Most of the parents have neglected their responsibilities in terms of providing for education, health and welfare and the rights of children. They subject them to hard labour,” Kaziba stated.
“After realizing that we have all these challenges, we thought that as leaders, let us come up with a local law that fits into the situation. These local laws at the level of the district are called ordinances,” he added.
“In this ordinance, we are trying to come up with strategies that can address these challenges. How can we deal with parents who are neglecting their children? How can we deal with parents who are overloading children with all kinds of work not commiserate to their age. That is why we are coming up with this ordinance,” he explained.
Kaziba said the decision to come up with this ordinance was informed by a survey that was conducted in communities and it was discovered that for the district leadership to iron out these problems, they needed an ordinance.
Implications
“We have outcomes that we are expecting from this ordinance once we formalize it and approved by the Solicit General. Today, we are beginning on the process of reading it in council; it has now gone to the committee of council, from there it will come back to council then it goes to Kampala for the final approval.
“We expect improvement of the management of children. We want parents to improve on parenting – let them be responsible. On the positive side, I know we will have helped our children but like any other law, we know that you cannot rule out negative effects. Those who will not be following the ordinance will suffer consequences like being subjected to fines, community work and other punishments,” Kaziba said.
