The Tragedy of Uganda’s Imprisoned Children

The Tragedy of Uganda’s Imprisoned Children
By Julian Lukins, Special to ASSIST News Service
KAMPALA, UGANDA (ANS – March 11, 2015) -- A TENSE stillness pervades the dark, mosquito-infested cell that houses 30 imprisoned boys.
The stench of body waste from the open latrine is putrid.
The boys, seated on the floor in watchful silence, stare straight ahead, wary of making eye contact.
One boy shifts uncomfortably on his torn, thin-foam mattress – his bed and only possession. His body language betrays his innermost thoughts: a gut-wrenching combination of fear, hopelessness and distrust of strangers.
His crime? Petty theft.
The consequences? Weeks locked up in a dingy cell, where the most regular visitors are red fire ants.
At 7 in the evening, as the light fades, the heavy iron door slams shut and the boys, ages 13-17, are locked inside for the night.
They use four buckets at the rear of the cell for a toilet. In the morning, they empty the waste outside.
Many of these boys shouldn’t even be here. They’ve committed minor offences, such as stealing a few Ugandan shillings (cents), or committed no offence at all. Some were swooped off the streets by the police. With no one to speak up for them, they were thrown into this remand center, three hours north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
There was little in the way of hope – until SixtyFeet arrived. Atlanta-based SixtyFeet is the only faith-centered organization serving these imprisoned children, ignored and rated worthless by the outside world.
No one gives them anything, so the boys seem stunned when a SixtyFeet worker asks what would make their lives more interesting. Slowly, one boy speaks up: a soccer ball, he whispers. Then another: a whistle. And another: a board game.
As soon as SixtyFeet staff arrived at the remand center, they assessed the most critical needs of the children. That same day, SixtyFeet arranged for the immediate delivery of new mattresses, food, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.
When the boys saw the new mattresses and supplies, their initial disbelief erupted into joyful celebration. Someone actually cared about them.
SixtyFeet continues to support the children at the remand center with food and medical care, and speaks up for their rights through legal advocacy. One of the boys, who is HIV-positive, receives special attention.
“We want this to be a center of hope, rather than a center of despair and pain,” says SixtyFeet’s president and co-founder Dan Owens, originally from Atlanta.
SixtyFeet’s mission of hope and restoration is sweeping through Uganda’s national children’s prison and its system of remand centers where children wait to go before a judge.
With more than 2.4 million children in Uganda who’ve lost one or both parents, the number of kids at-risk of falling foul of the law is staggering.
Every year, the Government of Uganda incarcerates thousands of children – many for street begging, disobedience to parents, slacking off school, and a multitude of minor infractions.
Five years ago, no one was looking out for these “throw-away” kids stuck in the judicial pipeline. They could linger for months waiting for a hearing before a judge.
Then SixtyFeet was formed by a group of Christians in Atlanta – injecting the dual antidote of justice and Jesus into the darkness of Uganda’s often-dysfunctional juvenile detention system.
Serving the Most Vulnerable
At the M1 children’s prison outside Kampala, SixtyFeet serves hundreds of street children and other vulnerable boys and girls who’ve had a brush with the law. SixtyFeet provides food, clothing, bedding, medical care and counseling, accelerates legal hearings, and reunites lost or abandoned children with their families.
Several of SixtyFeet’s local workers – like Lydia (24) – are former street kids themselves. Orphaned at the age of 9, Lydia begged and stole on the streets of Kampala, wearing old sackcloth and sleeping in cardboard boxes in the slums. Like other street kids, she took drugs to dull her heartache. “I had nobody,” she says.
One day, someone Lydia refers to as a “Good Samaritan” from America approached her on the street. “She gave me rice and milk, and told me: ‘Jesus can change your life.’ I thought: ‘How can Jesus do that?’”
Lydia continued to suffer terrible abuse on the streets, frequently beaten up and sexually assaulted. But the Good Samaritan’s words stuck – and Lydia became a follower of Jesus. At M1, SixtyFeet invited Lydia to come alongside the most vulnerable street kids, known as the Karamojong.
“I have a dream to help the street children who are orphans,” she says. “They are used and abused all day long, but I want to show them Jesus. Jesus is love, and although he came for everyone, I believe especially the orphans.”
Thomas, a street kid turned young evangelist, leads worship and Christian discipleship in the M1 facility. When he first showed up at the prison, the excited children went wild. They knew Thomas from the streets – and instantly gelled with him.
Recently, a street kid “round-up” by the police in Kampala doubled the M1 population overnight, stretching meager resources beyond limits. The most fortunate kids have a bunk or thin foam mattress to sleep on. Those not-so-lucky sleep on the concrete floor. Some don’t even have a pair of pants, so they wrap sackcloth or other harsh material around their waist. Workers couldn’t find anything for one little boy to wear – so they clothed him in a girl’s dress. At meal times, it’s a cup of porridge, or a single sweet potato.
One 10-year-old boy’s ordeal is like something out of a horror movie.
Transported to Kampala to be used as a human sacrifice in a satanic ceremony, the boy was discarded because he’d been circumcised. Thrown into a swamp, he struggled out – only to be picked up by the police. Miles from home, and with no way of getting back to his village, the traumatized boy ended up in M1 where he waits to be returned home – a process that could drag on for weeks or months.
In the five years they’ve been serving Uganda’s imprisoned children, SixtyFeet’s counselors have regularly encountered tragic circumstances – but they’re also seeing God at work in the lives of abandoned, lost and incarcerated children.
Seeing themselves through God’s eyes, children are becoming advocates themselves – urging their friends to stay off the streets, go to school, seek forgiveness, forgive others, and obey their parents.
“We’ve seen many children give their lives to Christ and be changed,” says Owens. “We’ve traced many family members and successfully resettled hundreds of children – moving them out of the prison system and back home or to a safe place.
“This is our heart – to see the children set free.”
Photo captions: 1) BLEAK: The M1 children’s prison outside Kampala, Uganda. 2) Toilet facilities for 30 imprisoned boys in a single cell. 3) SixtyFeet worker Lydia has devoted her life to loving streets kids and orphans. 4) NEW BEDS: SixtyFeet delivers new mattresses for children behind bars. 5) Reporter Julian Lukins in the Kampala slums.
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