His Majesty Olarker Philip Rauni III launching “KURA MATIRA” a campaign to end child marriage.
By Prisca Oroma
Nebbi
The Alur kingdom has launched a one-year campaign to fight against child marriage code named ‘Kura Matira’.
The project will also help in reducing new HIV/Aids infections among adolescent girls in the kingdom.
The one-year project is worth UGx 38.9 million and is funded by The Aids Support Organisation (TASO).
Rt Hon.Vincent Ochaya Orach, the Prime Minister Alur kingdom while launching the project said “the project titled Ending Child Marriage in Alur Kingdom through returning to the fireplace is to help reduce incidences of early marriage among adolescent girls aged from 10-24 years in Alur Kingdom”.
He said they will mostly target out of school adolescent girls.
Meanwhile the Alur king his majesty Philip Olarker Rauni III while launching the Kura Matira project recently in Nebbi municipality called for unity among the chiefs and urged them to support the project.
“What brings disunity is selfishness, we should know that we are one and ensure that we protect our culture and see that the youths know and follow our culture to uplift our kingdom”, he noted.
He said the chiefs should be able to air out their views freely and observed that there has been a breakdown in the communication system due the Covid -19 pandemic.
“We have reports from civil society and district local governments accusing the chiefs of not protecting the rights of girls and women in the kingdom therefore this must stop and with this project we need to follow our commitment to protect the rights of women and girls in the kingdom”, he said.
According to the Uganda AIDS Commission, about 500 girls aged 15-24 get infected on a weekly basis in Uganda (UAC, 2016). Often, widely held taboos make it difficult to talk about gender, HIV and sexuality with young people. Yet young people account for about 45% of new HIV infections worldwide (UNAIDS, 2008).
Young women aged 14-24 years are two-and-a half times more likely to be infected with HIV than young men of the same age yet young women often are unable to negotiate safer sex and condom use with their sexual partners.