Even The Church Couldn’t Offer Her Teenage Solace

Today’s  teenage girls are constantly worried about tomorrow. When they go for counseling, the priests instead of protecting them end up using them sexually.

Even The Church Couldn’t Offer Her Teenage Solace

Ruth Akello (Not Real Names) was born into this world in June 1986 to an impoverished family of John Kabenge and Nakate Theresa Rose of Bamusuta village in Kayunga. Growing up in Bamusuuta Village may not have offered her all the pleasures, privileges and parental care that a young girl of her type needed. The mud and wattle iron sheeted house that her father owned always stood in sharp contrast to the ones that their neighbours owned.
“I remember asking my dad to build a house like that of our neighbour and he simply promised. However, as years went by, I couldn’t see anything,” Ruth says.

Barely six years after her birth, her parents would not be in position to take care of her and this meant that she would be sent to her aunt in Buikwe district. The journey that would leave a scar in her life was started one misty morning when her father picked his bicycle, rode her off to a taxi stage in Kayunga town and boarded together with her up to Mukono town. That was not the end of the journey. She remembers humming to the local tunes as she sat in a car for the first time and she thought the ride would take her to heaven. The next means to Bukunja delivered her into the hands of her cruel aunt. She thought a change of environment would have improved her life and make her be able to provide for her poor family but all this was a dream.

While at her aunt’s, she was exposed to the harshest of all life conditions. “My aunt would ruthlessly wake me up by sprinkling cold water over my body every morning. She would then hit by buttocks before telling me to go fetch water,” she recalls. She also engaged in a number of businesses that included splitting firewood for sale, making Waragi and selling fish to buy clothes and food for her aunt’s family. In her adult senses, she couldn’t imagine doing things that adults are supposed to do in her early years of childhood.

Her father heard of her plight and went to collect her. To add insult into injury, when she arrived at their home, her father had again gotten married to another woman and this was the beginning of trouble. She remembers the endless quarrels between her mum and their step mum and the unhappiness that swam in their home. In one occasion, her step mum intentionally burnt her hand with a hot iron box while she ironed the clothes and the scar is still visible on her left hand. “I remember I was playing next to the table where the shirt was being ironed was spread. I stretched my hand playfully to touch the shirt collar and she placed the iron box on my hand,” she recalls.

Some teenagers like Ruth do not have the opportunity to be befriended because of poverty. Religious leaders should castigate this discrimination and counsel errant church leaders against sexually abusing teenagers

Ray of Hope

Her father succumbed to HIV/AIDS in 1998 when she was in Primary six. All through the years, she had never been regular at school. The priests at a nearby catholic parish where she had been baptized offered to take her up and educate her. While with the men of God, she engaged in various house chores like washing, cooking and garden work in exchange for school fees.
“The parish had a piggery project and my work was to feed them. I did this every morning and I felt no insult at doing this,” Ruth says.

However, as years went by, she allegedly began receiving sexual approaches from the men of God. They would call her deep in the night to go sleep with them but she would resist. The fifteen years old girl couldn’t imagine what it would mean to sleep with a man.
“One night, as I lay in bed in one of the rooms at the parish monastery, someone knocked at my door. There came one of the priests that I had been serving. He told me to follow him and he said he wanted to make love to me,” Ruth says in tears. This encounter culminated in a pregnancy that she didn’t want, but because of her catholic roots, she decided to keep it. However, the priest who impregnated her pressed her on and she finally committed abortion.

Teenage mothers are a common sight in today’s societies. They are victims of mail cruelty and chauvinism.

The Devil’s Reward

After the abortion, she was told she would be enrolled in a nunnery but was advised to first pursue a career in teaching. She enrolled at Nkokonjeru Primary Teachers’ College were she attained a certificate in primary teaching. She never gave up the dream of becoming a nun so she enrolled at a nunnery after the course. The priests’ advances however didn’t stop even when she had changed location. “I thought there was purity in the institution but I was again impregnated by a different priest this time and aborted again. This led to my dismissal from the institution and quiet settlement in teaching,” Ruth says.

She vowed never to get back to the priests because she saw how they were interfering with the progress of her education. The years she spent teaching were not rewarding because of the meager pay. She decided to get married such that she could raise her children.

“While in Wakiso, a met some man who had all the qualities and after some months, we started dating. We began staying together though we are not yet officially married,” she said. Ruth, on top of being a mother of two is now pursuing a nursing course in Ngora Nurses School in Kumi district. She claims that the priest simply used her but didn’t want to educate her.

“I can now see some hope. I wasted a lot of time while a teenager when I was with the priests and delayed the progress of my education,” the 25 years old mother says with a smile.

 Teenage girls are exploited all over the country. While doing housework for meager pay, they end up being sexually exploited, abused and impregnated by their employers