The role of legal knowledge in combating child abuse in the East African community: the case of Uganda

The law in Uganda defines a child as a person below 18 years of age. Children in Uganda, and the world at large have suffered and continue to experience abuse with devastating results. Child abuse results from a number of factors that include: ignorance of the law, poor law enforcement, social and cultural conflict with the law in addition to poverty and dysfunction in families. Over the years, international and regional instruments plus municipal laws have been enacted all in a bid to safeguard the child and end abuse. At the same time, numerous efforts to eliminate child abuse have been made the government of Uganda along with other stakeholders. Yet, child abuse incidences continue to persist. At the heart of child abuse is the lack of legal knowledge among children accordingly, this study set out to determine the extent to which this is the case. The focus was on children who attend school. The study, conducted in Kampala reveals that there is no formal means through which a child can access information about laws that relate to him/her. The few exceptions found were limited to those schools that collaborated with NGOs. However, these too are marred with inconsistencies ranging from how participating schools were selected to the content of what was disseminated. The study further underscores the co-relation between lack of legal knowledge and child abuse. Thus signifying the urgent need for the government of Uganda, to amend the law and grant children the right to access legal knowledge. This can be implemented by including legal knowledge in the national curricular in order to benefit not only children in Kampala, but also throughout the country. The model can then be replicated in the East Africa Community to benefit children who are who are about 50% of its population.