Commentary: Heterosexuals are to blame for Uganda’s sex crime problem
Uganda has a sex crime problem, but gays are just easy scapegoats. So states columnist Daniel K. Kalinaki, writing in the Ugandan newspaper the Monitor after analyzing police statistics about heterosexual and homosexual sex crimes.
Columnist Daniel Kalinaki is pictured above. (Photo courtesy of Monitor.co.ug)
Uganda has a sex crime problem, but gays are just easy scapegoats
It is that time of the decade when everyone with a modicum of power in Uganda turns their guns on the gay community. The President has weighed in. The Anglican Church, swiftly moving on from the sex scandal involving its last chief shepherd, has called for fire and brimstone to rain down on the gays.
Parliament, which is yet to find time to debate the findings of important inquiries into Uganda Airlines and the National Social Security Fund, says a new Bill will soon be tabled to deal with the matter. Even the Muslims, often on the receiving end of oppression, marched through the streets, prayer beads at the ready, uttering fatwas to the infidels.
This multi-layered onion rolls onto the floor of discussion once or twice every decade. It comes covered in anti-Western rhetoric, and coated with the dust of shadowy groups allegedly quietly recruiting young people into homosexuality, with cash as a lubricant. Careers have been built on fighting homosexuality; visas and economic relief obtained on account of victimhood. It is big business, alright, but with very little in the way of facts, and evidence.
But what do the data show? Does Uganda have a sex crime problem and, if so, what is it really? Your columnist looked at the crime report from the Uganda Police Force and found some interesting stats.
The data show that, indeed, we have a sex crime problem on our hands. In the last three years (2020, 2021 and 2022), 34 Ugandans below the age of 18 were sexually abused. Every day. Simply put, a Ugandan under the age of 18 is sexually abused every 42 minutes. We call it defilement, but it is sexual abuse, to be polite, and rape, to be absolutely clear.
Another 1,623 Ugandans were raped last year, or four every day. This is only the number of those who reported to the police, but it is certainly much higher than this.
Out of the 12,780 “defilement” cases reported to the police last year, 12,470 victims were female, while 310 were male. One way of interpreting this is to suggest that the lesbians are on rampage. More accurately, however, is that most of the sexual assault of minors in Uganda reported to the police is of the heterosexual variety and involves men preying on young girls.
Some 653 victims were aged eight years or younger, and about 4,000 were aged 9-14. The majority of victims, 8000 or so, were aged 15-17, statistics that reveal socio-economic dynamics, especially in poor rural areas, that are too complex to get into here.
