Your partnership helping ECM fight child trafficking at the source in Uganda

Fighting Child Trafficking at the Source in Uganda--The Karimojong Project

On certain days of the week, you can buy a Karamojong child at the cattle markets along the Uganda-Kenya border. Price: About $160. Destination: The child will probably be forced to beg on the streets of Kampala, perhaps being beaten throughout the day, because a crying child stirs the sympathy of bypassers more effectively. All earnings will go to the child's master, while the child will be forced to subsist in dismal and unsafe conditions.  Now, Every Child Ministries has taken on projects to fight child trafficking at the source. In Uganda, this is The Karamojong Project.

ECM’s Karamoja Project --NOW!

No child should be forced to beg on the streets--forced to sit in the hot sun for hours, without protection and often without food or even water--robbed of his meager earnings by a  master who often roughs him up to keep him crying.  A crying child brings in more money for his master.  Every Child Ministries is taking action now.  We have identified 15 of the poorest of the poor street beggars and placed them in a boarding school where they are safe and doing great in school!  We need several more child sponsors in order to continue helping these kids on a long-term basis, and to take others in off the cruel streets.  If you want to help, go to our child sponsorship page now.

The Karamoja Area
Karamoja (sometimes spelled Karimoja) is a desolate cattle raising area in the northeast corner of Uganda, bordering on Sudan and Kenya-- a vast plain, separated from the Kenya border by rugged mountains. The area is well-populated with about 846,000 people, which is 2 to 3% of the population of Uganda.

The Karamojong People
The Karamojong (Karimojong) are a semi-nomadic cattle-raising people (and sometimes a cattle-stealing people) who cling vehemently to their traditional ways. They are related to the Turkana and Masaai people across the Kenyan border and to other tribes in southern Sudan.

The Karamojong and Their Love Affair with Cattle
The Karamojong believe in “the divine right of cattle”, that is, they believe God has assigned all cattle in the world to them and they therefore have a God-given right to all cattle. Unfortunately, neighboring tribes in Kenya, also have the same conviction, leading to inevitable conflicts over cattle. There are almost as many cattle in some areas of Karamoja as there are people. Some crops are also raised, like some grains sweet potatoes, cabbage, and beans. However, repeated shortage of rainfall in recent years has devastated this part of the economy, as well as one of the few industries—grain milling. Traditional Karamojong food consists of milk mixed with defibrinated blood, supplemented with meat from animals that died naturally, grain or beans.

Gospel to the Karamojong
Gospel witness to the Karamojong has been vastly insufficient. A couple of Presbyterian groups have been trying to establish a work there since the late 1990’s, especially utilizing a roving medical clinic as a form of witness. One single missionary family is known to be laboring there. Southern Baptists have sent some well-drilling missions there, and others have had some success with the storytelling method of evangelism. Overall, much still remains to be done to reach the Karamojong. Evangelicals are less than 2% of the population, with the vast majority clinging to traditional religion.

Trafficking of the Karamojong
The environment of the plain is very harsh, made more difficult in recent years by drought. Because life is so difficult, some parents have sold their children, usually receiving from $2 to $16 for each one. The children are then resold at cattle markets on certain days, bringing about $160 each. Some of them end up as beggars pimped out, so to speak, on the streets of Kampala.

One study in 2007 showed an increasing tendency for young people to leave the area looking for work with others they did not know, inviting more abusive trafficking situations. Other poor families have moved to Kampala, or the mothers and children have moved, hoping to seek out a better life by street begging. This movement has been caused not only by the isolation and abject poverty of the area, but also because of repeated sexual violence toward women and girls of the area by the military.

The Government Responds to the Problem
Trafficking of the Karamojong into the city has become so problematic that in very recent times, the government has been actively seeking to intervene. In April 2010, the Minister of Gender asked authorities to set up checkpoints along the route from Karamoja to Kampala, the capital city. Officials were to check buses for unaccompanied children being trafficked to Kampala for begging. The Minister spoke of “an organized racket of criminals” behind the trafficking.

Early in 2010, police arrested a man and five women who were said to have kidnapped 24 children aged 1 to 17 years from the Karamoja area. The group was caught trying to transport the children to Kampala. Many of the beggar children live in Kisenyi, a slum of Kampala. Children, usually 1 to 10 years of age, are placed by their mothers or by their masters at strategic points throughout the city to beg. Karamojong women in Kampala mostly work brewing “marua”, a local beer, or as house maids.

While officially all Ugandan citizens have the right to move wherever they like in the country, officials have announced to Karamojong traveling south that “you need a letter from your local leader if you want to transport your children out of the region.” The government has sought to discourage further migration of children to Kampala to become beggars and to return and resettle those already there. In December 2009 alone, over 400 children and women from Karamoja were rounded up by the Kampala City Council for return to the north.

In 2011, a concerted effort was made to "round up" street children, mostly Karimojong, and take them to giant rehabilitation centers.  What a task they face!  However, more Karimojong are still on the streets and others filter in constantly.

Karamojong traditional religion
Traditional ceremony and ritual are deeply-entrenched, and the elders of the community are regarded as priests of a god they call Akuj. Religious worship is usually confined to time of great need. Akuj is thought to be the supreme god, believed to reside in the sky or at the top of high mountains near the sky. He is perceived to be distant and not vitally interested in the everyday life of people, so much so that the Karamojong believe that Akuj has to be periodically reminded that they exist. Some believe that Akuj likes cattle better than he does humans, and that humans are of no primary importance to him. 

Akuj is thought to be part of the upper world, whereas spirits are associated with the lower, earthly world. Diviners are said to discern the intention of Akuj and to communicate with him through reading the entrails of a sacrificed animal, and through dreams.

Education amongst the Karamojong
Traditionally, education for girls is not valued and is thought to lower the value of a woman for marriage. The women are believed to be the source of family wealth, which is obtained through hard physical labor like building and gardening. This is the reason 90% of their females are not educated. Families hope that as the girls work hard, they may attract wealthy men to marry. Girls attending school are presented as lazy ones that a boy should have no interest in marrying.

Language of the Karamojong
Ng’akarimojong. In their language the prefix Nj denotes the people, Ng denotes the language, and lack of a prefix denotes the land area where they live. Kiswahili is also spoken in one of the Karmojong districts. The name Karamojong may come from the phrase “akarima ajong”, “the old men have got tired”, acquired during their migration to the area.

Marginalized, Excluded
The Karamojong have been marginalized and excluded by much of the country because of the impression that they are backwards and uneducated. There have been many charges of media hate speech against them. There is a common saying, “We shall not wait for Karamoja to develop”. Yet basic services to the area have not been provided, and many existing ones were destroyed by the LRA or other military action.

Strategic Prayer Requests for the Karamojong--
In Jesus' mighty name we ask:
• For successful outreach to Karamojong children & families living in Kampala as beggars.

• For wisdom as ECM seeks to develop its first sponsorship projects to the Karamoja homeland.

• For wisdom & providential protection over all those seeking to reach the Karamojong.

• For understanding as the Karamojong people hear the Bible stories. Pray that this would lead to successful planting of churches.

• That the Karamojong would see that Jesus’ power is greater than that of their god Akuj or others.

• The Jesus film is now out in Karamojong. Pray that God may greatly use this tool to bring whole families, clans and villages to Christ.

• For the conversion of Karamojong elders and decision makers.

• For God’s direction as ECM plans to bring our child sponsorship program to the Karamojong.

• Pray that the Karamojong may come to understand that God gave them special gifting for working with cattle, but also gave the same gifting to others. Pray that the peace of Christ would rule in their hearts and that their violent ways would change.