Northern Uganda Messenger Post

Key Words: Uganda Law Society (ULS), Uganda Penal Code, Rape, Defilement, Age of consent, Patriarchy, Gender Equality, Child Rights, Rape Victims, Gender Discrination, Sex Offences . A forthnight ago, we wrote about the Uganda Law Society (ULS) lending its professional weight to a law that would criminalise abducted children as young as 15 years old forced into child-soldiering by the Lord's Resistance Army. Our ire was raised by the fact that ULS knows these children are victims of the state that failed to protect them and the insurgents that abducted, trained and deployed them to commit despicable acts. In discussing the issue, we thought that it was ridiculous, because the ULS knows very well it is a war crime to recruit, coerce and deploy anyone younger than 18 into armed conflict. How could they be talking of children as young as 15, being responsible first, for being abducted by the insurgents; and second for being trained and deployed to commit war crimes and crimes agains...

Key Words : Uganda, Uganda Law Society(ULS), Uganda Parliamentarians (MPs), Carnal Knowledge, Paedophiles, Adulterers, polygamy, Underage Sex, Defilement, International Criminal Court (ICC), ICC Bill 2006, Joseph Kony, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Child Soldiers, Yoweri Museveni, Age of consent, Minimum Recruitment Age. The independent Ugandan daily, The Daily Monitor , has reported that Uganda Law Society (ULS) and a select committee of the Ugandan parliament have agreed to lower the minimum age for legal responsibility from the internationally recognised 18, to 15, so that abducted children gang-pressed into the ranks of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA ), could be tried for the same crimes their abductors and commanders have been indicted for - war crimes and crimes against humanity -by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The LRA is a notorious rebel army that has been fighting dictator Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, for the last 23 years. The insurgents earned their notor...