- Education: Low funding, teacher absenteeism, poorly enforced curriculum, lack of textbooks and large classes are inhibiting the potential of Uganda’s children. Poor national educational outcomes and low retention rates result, limiting vocational opportunities to a narrow productive base beyond agriculture, with little available capital to scale up small enterprises.
- Child labour: A cyclical lack of capital has fueled the exploitation of children in subsistence agriculture or domestic work. Instead of going to school it is commonplace for children to work on plantations, factories and in homes if not to support their own families, then for employers or traffickers. As one in five working children had no formal education, they are highly vulnerable to exploitation and poor conditions of work.
- Child sacrifice: The deeply disturbing custom of child sacrifice is becoming an increasing problem in Uganda. Traditional witchdoctors and healers demand the lives, organs or body parts of hundreds of children every year for the purposes of ceremonial rituals and spiritual intercession. The victims are kidnapped and attacked until they die of blood loss or are kept alive for continued acts of brutality.
- Water and sanitation: Only 34% of Ugandans have access to improved sanitation facilities. Public running water infrastructure is scarce so scooping water from natural springs is the norm for many rural dwellers. When having to make this trip multiple times each day, productivity is compromised and the communal nature of water sources make them prone to pollution and outbreaks of disease.
- Refugees: Since conflict sparked a humanitarian emergency in South Sudan in 2013, an estimated 165 000 refugees have crossed the border into Ugandan territory (UNHCR February 2015 estimates). The government’s generous asylum policies have led to the establishment of new refugee centres and the mass voluntary repatriation of long-standing refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to accept new refugees on a prima facie basis. However, as population density continues to rise with the influx, the challenge of land scarcity is becoming increasingly difficult. The UNHCR’s focus is on how to optimise social and economic opportunities from smaller plots of land to maintain healthy livelihoods.
Sources:
CIA WorldFact Book - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html
United Nation Development Programme - http://www.ug.undp.org/content/uganda/en/home/countryinfo/
Wage Indicator Foundation = http://www.mywage.org/uganda/home/labour-laws/fair-treatment/child-labour
Kyampisi Childcare Ministries - http://kyampisi.org/?page_id=133
UNHCR - http://data.unhcr.org/SouthSudan/country.php?id=229
