By Peter Ssebulime
Kampala: Opposition Members of Parliament have called upon the Uganda police and Makerere University Administration to conduct thorough investigations into allegations that security officers deployed at the University have turned into sex predators, gang-raping MAK female students.
It is alleged that brutal arrests and sexual harassment were meted out to students during the three-day strike at MAK by security officers under the guise of dispersing the protesting students.
So far, Siperia Mollie Ssaabirabo, a Guild Council Representative (GRC), is battling for her life in a city health facility (names withheld for her own safety) where she was rushed after allegedly being sexually assaulted by men suspected to be security operatives, who grabbed her from Campus on Tuesday night, took her and reportedly sexually abused her before they abandoned her for death.
While addressing journalists at Parliament this afternoon, the shadow minister of Education Mathias Mpuuga condemned the acts of impunity against the students allegedly by security operatives who are supposed to protect them. “We strongly condemn the brutal acts of alleged sexual harassment on female students by security officers. We thus ask the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to investigate, arrest and prosecute the culprits,” Mpuuga said.
Additionally, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) Betty Aol also appealed to the University leadership headed by prof.Barnabas Nawangwe to always address the cause of problems rather than reacting to the results.
She appealed to the Vice Chancellor Prof.Nawangwe to revise the decision of increasing tuition and the suspension of Mollie Siperia and other students who have since been suspended because of the strikes.
