The BBC Africa Eye charges itself with the responsibility of unearthing harmful practices and injustices in the troubled underbellies of African countries.
For its latest documentary, the BBC Africa Eye took its team to the Northern part of Uganda that’s been rife with cases of teenage pregnancies, sexual violence and incest. According to a report, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, reports of teenage pregnancies in girls aged 10-14 increased by 300%. The Northern region had witnessed an increase in sexual violence and internal displacement of people since it was plagued by two decades of insurgency led by the warlord Joseph Kony.
In the eyewitness report led by Paul Bakibinga at the Gulu Regional Hospital, about 23% of the pregnancies were teenagers and all of them were defiled, either by known faces, family members or in some cases, unidentifiable men in the community.
The Africa Eye team also spoke to victims of the years-long insurgency in that region. It was a grim tale of loss, trauma and helplessness. Akeh Grace shared a harrowing tale of how she lost her sister and twin children to the insurgency and how she tried to raise, Eunice, her sister’s daughter like her child.
The documentary offers a painful insight into the ordeals women and young girls in these parts of Uganda have been facing for more than two decades. How justice is considered a mere trifle by the justice system, the complicity of the security forces, and how victims are unable to properly pursue justice in the face of poverty and intimidation.
It also paints a vivid picture of the arduous task the NGOs have to surmount to protect and take care of these young girls.
Watch the documentary below:
