By Hanning Mbaazi
The minister for primary education Mrs. Rosemary Seninde has cautioned parents who plait their school going children’s hair saying its putting them at risk of pedophiles thus disrupting their learning process and exposing their untold side effects.
According to the Minister, children of school going age having plaited hair will have hard time concentrating in class, since they will need to tend to their hair or deal with itching dandruff
“This child’s hair will be itching; she will not concentrate in class. Some of the creams used for these children are not fit for their scalps, this exposes them to untold side effects,” she said.
Seninde also said that some parents go an extra mile of giving children accessories like necklaces, earrings and lipstick, which makes them appealing to predatory men.
“Some of the parents give the children earrings, and lipstick. This is not good, because if your child already has plaited hair, then you accessorise them, they look older. The same parent will give the child a boda boda rider to deliver them to school. Satan is not yet asleep, why are you tempting him?” she said.
Hardly a day goes by and no local radio station will report a defilement case or a sexual offence against girls of school going age.
In Uganda, barely a day passes without media reports on cases of defilement, or other forms of sex related crime against children. Children are being subjected to sexual abuse within their communities, schools and homes yet these are the very places they should feel the most secure and safe.
A recently released Violence against Children (VAC) report commissioned by Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development indicates that 35.3% of girls and 16.5% of boys experienced sexual abuse in childhood. According to the Annual Crime Report, 14,985 defilement cases were reported in 2017 compared to 17,395 cases in 2016. While this figure presents a 14 % a drop, the fact that these cases happens daily should worry us all and calls for the need to address it once and for all.
