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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2025
Many girls in Arua City and the surrounding areas are loitering on the streets vending petty goods and drugs, ignoring calls to be at school.
As they do this, the miss vital basic right in their growth period to receive education, thereby increasing their vulnerability and exposure to exploitation.
This is according to Kalsum Abdu Fadelmullah, the Arua City secretary for education, who has called on all mothers to ensure that their daughters and those under their care are kept in school.
“As we conclude the month of Women’s Day commemoration, I want to encourage all mothers to ensure that all girls are at school. Especially those of school going age,” said Kalsum in an interview with West Nile News.
She emphasized that education has no age limit, but parents, guardians and community leaders have to encourage girls to go to school early enough to know that education is very important and there is no miracle that they are going to do without education today.
“I have moved to many schools and found that the number of girl enrolment has increased, and their concentration has increased but the completion rate is still low due to high dropouts,” she pointed out.
The secretary said many girls are on the streets vending petty merchandise such as snacks, roasted potatoes, bananas etc. and some of them are out of school because they could not obtain necessities like sanitary pads and school fees among others.
Emphasizing that these are the future mothers and leaders because in the current world, a lot of things rest on us mothers Kalsum cautioned women that “even now men want women who can get money on their own.”
She asked men to support the women in promoting girl-child education and upbringing.
“This thing of girls going to collect mirungi early in the morning must stop. Suppose the field gets destroyed, how are you going to sustain your life. And think of some women moving to collect girls from the village to be used as maids and in effect surrender all their household duties to these young girls, deny them education opportunities, this too must stop.”
Jimmy Anguyo, the regional head of family and child protection unit at the West Nile regional police command agrees that the vulnerable state of children including the girls exposes them to situations where they come into conflict with the law.
However, the police has devised innovative approach known as diversion to ensure expeditious handling of cases involving children, especially when they are not capital in nature.
Anguyo’s record indicates that a total 95 cases have been disposed of in the past three years without recourse to the formal court process, thereby reducing congestion at the child remand home in Giligili.
These include offences such as affray, malicious damage to property, criminal trespass, theft, common assault, assault, prostitution and any other minor offences.
The rationale for diversion aims at rehabilitation rather than focus on punishment, it encourages children to take responsibility for wrongdoing, gives a second chance before children are confronted by adversarial criminal laws and allows restitution of affected persons and reintegration of offenders.
Disclosing that there is a new policy development in the offing, Kalsum said the City council is working to ensure that ordinances are enacted to support the girl-child education.
This will be done through a bursary scheme to support bright girls in the city as an appreciation for good performance in national examinations.
We encourage schools ensure that washrooms are created for girls in schools. We thank the senior women teachers for supporting girls.
