Fourteen year old Anitah Nalunga, a Primary Seven leaver, could soon belong to any man who demonstrates commitment to pay for her secondary education following a destitute call for help by her impoverished parents.
Christine Nabutono, 48, a resident of Nansana East II A zone, in Nansana division, Wakiso district is begrudgingly offering her lovely fourteen year old daughter to any man who can guarantee her education after her efforts to further her education all hitting dead ends.
Nabutono is a casual labourer who has been washing people’s clothes to educate her two children, Nalunga and her 12 year old sibling in Primary Six. Nabutono’s husband, Kyadondo Richard who used to help from his casual working digging pit latrines has recently been out of work with poor health.
Following the release of last year’s Primary Leaving examinations by the Ministry of Education in which Nalunga scored aggregate 17, the impoverished parents have been trying all sorts of avenues to raise the money to send their daughter to a secondary school with no success.
” I have tried everything but I cant manage. Her [Nalunga] father is no longer working because of his poor health yet I want my daughter to study so she doesn’t have to face a hard life like me,” Nabutono grumbles.
Nabutono who only studied up to Primary Two before she married at a very you g age of 13 years says she had struggled with the pain of illiteracy and poverty that she wouldn’t wish her daughter to undergo the same humiliation.
With her PLE Certificate, Nalunga still stands out as the most educated member of Mr Kyadondo’s extended family but Nabutono feels it’s still not enough.
” I want her to learn to speak very good English and not have to be tortured by a man because she can’t defend herself. I want her to get a job and be able to look after her children and us, her parents.
Narrating her early days, the mother of three recalls how she was forced to marry at a young age of 12 while still living in her native Mayuge district, in Busoga, Eastern Uganda. The following year, she became a mother at 13 years. Two years later, Nabutono was widowed when her exceedingly elderly husband passed on aged 78, leaving her with a two year daughter to fend for.
Fate would later throw her in Wakiso, driven by the prospect of finding a good job in the city to look after her daughter. As the saying goes, however, not all that gildters is gold. The city showed the poor teenage mother and her daughter its darkest side. From being molested and starved at her hither to much anticipated house keeping job, she found herself on the streets, homeless and hopeless.
She met Kyadondo, the modest man she has now and only the second man she has known all her life. Anitah, the girl about this discussion came shortly after. Unfortunately, the new marriage proved to be less conducive for the child Nabutono came with from the previous relationship. As a result, the girl conceived and produced at age 15. Nabutono hops with her tiny granddaughter as she searches for casual work to do.
Although she admits that it is very demeaning and dehumanizing for her to offer her daughter to men to possess her as a commodity, she insists that there can never be any more dehumanizing situation than the consequences of lack of education.
” I know it’s not the best thing to do but again, what can be worse than an illiterate poor woman? What worse could she be than me her mother who has had to suffer all my life!” She explains, tears in her eyes.
Her offer has, however, got one condition which is that any prospective buyer for daughter will have to allow her live with her parents until she turns eighteen.
To compound the already destitute situation, Nabutono had been struggling with poor health and has recently been hospitalized for a lengthy period with diabetic conditions.
