KAMPALA – Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa has tasked the government to block all pornography sites in Uganda if the country is to maintain morals and have a productive future generation.
Tayebwa was on Wednesday speaking at the high-level policymakers’ engagement on financing for young people organized by the AfriChild Centre, Child Fund International Uganda Country Office in partnership with The Uganda Parliamentary Forum for Children at Sheraton Hotel Kampala.
According to him, nearly every child from an average and well-off family has a gadget which they use to access poor content that poses a danger to their lives.
“…any home where people can afford a gadget has provided them to their children and are exposed to cartoons of violence and pornography. When you go to other countries, pornography is blocked, what value does it have that our government cannot block it? Pornography is killing us,” he decried.
In 2022, the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, in partnership with The AfriChild Centre at Makerere University and ChildFund International Uganda Country Office, conducted a Budget Analysis of national and sub-district budget allocations for child protection in Uganda.
The findings of the study conducted identified actions for increased investment and budgetary allocation to child protection. Child protection is a multifaceted issue, which adds complexity to public financing.
It encompasses a broad range of concerns affecting children, such as violence, abuse, neglect, child marriage, FGM, teenage pregnancies, child labour, trafficking, sexual violence, exploitation, alternative care, adoptions, child poverty, bullying, children in conflict with the law, incarceration, and birth registration.
Accordingly, Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) are responsible for different aspects of child protection.
Tayebwa said that it is the responsibility of the Government to fund the children and committed to working with the stakeholders in ensuring better financing and supporting of the young generation.
“I request the moment the budget estimates are released, do [stakeholders] an analyst to see how much has been allocated to support children.”
Mr. Deputy Speaker also tasked the society on its critical role of bringing up a child.
“When I was growing up, in my village you would bypass any home and they ask you, have you had anything to eat, if you’re not at school, anyone would punish you but these days, you meet someone and they ask you to do for them some work if you are free,” he said.
He also urged men to empower their women, for they will be able to take care of the family if they [men] die.
Woman MP Namayingo, Margaret Makoha also chairperson, Parliamentary Forum on Children decried the current challenge of DNA that has left many children hanging.
“We are witnessing many children suffer, lose out their education, chased away from their families after being denounced as the blood children.”
“We need to protect children. We need to get control OF DNA or else we are going to get more people stressed over these tests,” she noted.
