More than 15 children have been handed over to Kireka Police Station after passengers aboard Gateway Bus Reg. No. UAH 192H from Moroto discovered that they had been trafficked from their homes.
According to the concerned passengers, the children aged between four to 15 years boarded the morning bus from the bushes around Kautakou, a short distance to Kangole trading center in Napak district with three women who declined to reveal their identities.
However, concern increased after the children traveled a long distance without a guardian on the bus, while some started crying of hunger as they saw other passengers eating and others lay on the bus corridor helplessly, all the way to Kampala.
While some of the children disembarked from the bus at Iganga and Jinja, at least 17 continued to Kampala. One of the concerned passengers Emmanuel Ilukol is said to have raised the issue of the children upon arrival in Mukono town resulting into a unanimous decision by the passengers to handover them over to police.
When summoned to police, some of the mothers of the minor claimed that there were going for treatment at Mulago National Referral Hospital Kampala, distancing themselves from accusations of child trafficking.
Several children of school going age are trafficked from the Karamoja sub-region to come beg on the streets of Kampala. Several calls have been made for government to rehabilitate them, but this has not worked.
Recently, ArchBishop Ntagali urged members of the public to stop financing these children’s stay on the streets as this encourages the business even further.
