Ugandan Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga speaks to authorities at Queensland Parliament, Australia on 2 July 2019.
The executive director of Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga has made a call to the Australian government to take steps to help curb cases of children in Uganda who are mutilated or sacrificed with belief that their death or the use of their body parts will enable magical rites or ‘traditional medicine’.
Speaking to legislators at the Premiers Hall, Queensland parliament, Australia on 2nd July 2019, Pastor Sewakiryanga campaigned for a partner to engage with the government of Uganda to address Child Sacrifice, “which is now in epidemic proportions,” he said.
“On the 1st of December 2011, 8 years ago, a petition concerning the treatment of children in Uganda was tabled in the chambers of this Parliament by the former Member of Parliament for Maryborough, Hon. Chris Foley,” Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga said in his speech.
“The petition addressed particularly, the barbaric practice of ritual sacrifice and the mutilation of children for their body parts and blood, Child Sacrifice, which is now in epidemic proportions. At the time, our campaign to End child sacrifice was in its second year. There was still a denial of the issue from our government in Uganda, simply because it represented a shame and backwardness no one wanted to associate with. Since then, many children have fallen victims,” he continued.
“At the time, I was seeking some form of political pressure from external and political forces to awaken every Ugandan considering that Australia has bilateral relationship with Uganda. I was also seeking protection for my myself and team against the threats we received from those that targeted our lives for the stand we took. Our Team was and is still determined. But mostly, I was desperately seeking for support for the surviving victims and their families,” he added.
The assembly included Dr Christian Andrew Carr Rowan, an Australian politician and Specialist Physician. He has been the Liberal National Party Member for Moggill in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since 2015.
Pastor Peter’s dream to stamp out Child sacrifice in Uganda begun fifteen years ago when he traveled to Kyampisi, a village in Mukono district he describes as the “epicentre of witchcraft”.
Earlier speaking to media, Mr Sewakiryanga said the practice bears no genuine relationship to the local culture.
“There’s freedom of worship and there are people that believe in worshipping ancestral spirits and witchcraft practices,” he said.
“But when it comes to demeaning the life of a child, it becomes a human rights issue and that needs to be responded to.”
This is what drove Mr Sewakiryanga to establish Kyampisi Childcare Ministries (KCM), a charity that aims to end child sacrifice, support victims of the brutal practice and prosecute the perpetrators.
Mr Sewakiryanga says his organisation deals with between 20 and 30 confirmed cases of child sacrifice each year, on average. The majority of those children don’t survive.
In some cases, Mr Sewakiryanga says, parents have even sacrificed their own children. He told the media it’s difficult to find and prosecute the perpetrators because the practice is shrouded in secrecy.
He also lamented the Ugandan prosecution system which is “grossly underfunded and in some cases, not funded at all,” Mr Sewakiryanga said.
