Juliet Kimara
Gulu district has registered over 408 Cases of child neglect since the beginning of this year, according to the child protection unit at the Gulu Central Police. The highest number of cases were reported in Bardege and Layibi divisions.
Moses Okidi, a police officer attached to Gulu Child and Family Protection Unit told Acholi Times that the neglected children are mostly victims of domestic violence.
Moses Okidi attributed the high number of child neglect cases to the fact men have left the responsibility of taking care of children to their wives.
“Child desertion is very common. Women in Gulu do not want to keep children whose fathers’ are not giving them child support. Some just abandon the children at home others want to even abandon the children with us here [at police] ‘’ said Okidi.
The officer revealed that the child and family protection unit at Gulu police has taken 73 cases of child neglect to the Gulu magistrate Court.
Harriet Amono, 32, a resident of Laliya, a Gulu town suburb told Acholi Times from Gulu police that her husband abandoned her about a year ago with their 8 children without food, rent or school fees for the children.
Amono added that her husband left her after borrowing a loan of 800,000 shillings from a bank in Gulu last year. The husband has since failed to repay the loan and is on the run.
“He left me with the children in a rented house. He just went away leaving me with the children and when I leant that he was staying with another woman in town I looked for him to support the children in vain.”
Harriet Amono is one of the many women who have reported cases of child neglect as a result of being abandoned by their husbands.
