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A cross section of Ugandans including parents and student’s organizations have condemned teachers who defile underage primary school girls following reports that each year 40,000 girls are defiled by their teachers.
Uganda’s minister of gender, labor and social development, Mary Karooro Okurut today revealed through government newspaper, New Vision ‘that according to a recent research, 40,000 primary school girls are defiled by teachers every year.
In Uganda primary school girls are aged between 5 years and 14 yrs. There have been police cases where girls as young as 7 yrs have been defiled by their teachers.
Some of those arrested in defilement cases plead that they go for underage girls because they believe that unlike the mature women, they are not infected with HIV-AIDs. A good number of the victims get complications, like rupturing of their uterus which at times turn into life-long suffering.
Karooro said, ‘People will be shocked by the findings. Sexual harassment is a disease that must be rooted out.Otherwise, all women are an endangered species.’
She said that her ministry is to soon undertake research into defilement in primary schools and sex harassment in universities and places of work. There are reports that university girls give in to male lecturers so that they are awarded high marks during examinations and those who resists the advances are allegedly made to fail their courses.