Uganda: Punish the victims ?

New Vision ( Uganda ) reports

Self-defensive girl stones 'rapist' to death

KAMPALA - A sixteen-year-old girl called Shadia Nansubuga (not real names) has recorded a statement at the Police for stoning to death a man who she said wanted to rape her.

The man died on arrival at Mulago Hospital. The incident took place on the weekend in Kyebando Nsoba, a Kampala suburb.

Currently detained at Kira Road police station, Shadia said she did not intend to kill the man, but acted in self-defence.

“As I walked home from my friend’s home in Kamwokya, a man leapt at me from the bushes and started slapping me. He also kicked me and I fell down.

"As he started tearing off my skirts, attempting to rape me, I overpowered him, picked a huge stone and hit him on the head,” she narrated.

Nansubuga added that when the man fell down, she ran to a relative’s home.

By press time, circumstances surrounding Nansubuga’s arrest were scanty but the district Police commander of Kira Road police station, Robert Walugembe, said she will be charged with murder.

Robert Walugembe should be taken outside and shot. It would appear that he has made no effort to gather evidence of which one would expect there to be quite a bit.  From Rosebell's Blog 

A female journalist had committed suicide. Moreen Ndagire, whom I didn’t know personally, was a Sub-editor at a Red Pepper, a leading tabloid in Uganda. At the age of 24, she had achieved quite a lot that not many youth can do in this country with a high unemployment rate.

                                               Moreen Ndagire at her graduation in last year. Photo from Observer.

The report said that Ndagire had committed suicide after she was gangraped. The rape took place in August, there’s not much detail of where but this devastation had sent Ndagire to immediately turn to attempt to take her life.

And  interestingly Rosebell observes

I think the matter can be followed up from Police side to see if we can see what police has done, any arrests and investigations. If nothing has been done (like I highly suspect), we can see how to raise this as a case of negligence and call police to act. Am surprised and shocked that it is not featuring anywhere in the 16 days of activism and am close to pointing fingers on why? Where is Fida, Uwonet and the numerous women organizations in this country? What are they doing about it? Can they do anything about it? Can they hire private investigators to get evidence?

The Ugandan police are a disgrace to their uniforms.