Speaker of Parliament Anita Among has vowed to jealousy guard and retain her seat as Speaker of Parliament, saying she worked hard as a house girl, local brew seller and cleaner at Centenary Bank , after running away from home following rejection by her father, who wanted to force her into childhood marriage like he did to her sisters.
“As I told you, I will keep this seat jealously because I worked for it. I refused to become a teenage mother. So I am going to be in this seat, so you better guard this seat, other than this business of saying I want a kid, no, those kids are a problem, you will get them later,” said Among.
The Speaker made the remarks during the launch of the Uganda Parliamentary Forum to End Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy, where she rejected the call for use of contraceptives among teenagers, saying despite the poverty, the girls should know what they want in life and delay to have children.
She asked parents and cultural leaders to put an end to teenage pregnancies and child marriages saying the vice is encouraged by the unfortunate practice of viewing girls as a commodity.
She made the remarks while Launching the Parliamentary Forum to end Child Marriages and Teenage Pregnancies where she was named its patron.
“The issue of eliminating teenage pregnancies is a reality. I happened to be a victim of this particular practice; the challenge is that the moment a parent sees a girl developing breasts, they say she is ready for marriage,” she said adding that, ’I was going to Primary Seven when I almost got forced into a marriage; I took off from home, went and became a house girl, stayed in some other people’s homes and managed to pay for my own education’.
She blamed poor parenting for the increase in the vice and offered her support to the forum in creating awareness to end the practice and put the girls to school.
“One of the causes of early marriages and child pregnancy is an issue of parenting, but it also comes back to you, what do you want in life? You can be taken through all that but the resilience to move on is very important,” she added.
The Speaker thanked the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and development partners for supporting efforts to eradicate the practice saying it is time to take the fight to parents and cultural leaders, who should end practices that encourage the vice.
Hon. Ronald Olema Afidra (NRM, Lower Madi County) who is the Chairperson of the forum said society should not give up on the victims but still extend to them an opportunity to go back to school.
“Let us give them [the girls] the opportunity to go back to school where they can; we need the girls growing up to be girls, not to prematurely become mothers,” he said.
Ms Laura Criado Lafuente who represented the UFPA Country Representative pledged support to the new forum saying their intervention will be evidence-based, using demographic statistics to mount a laser-focused challenge against teenage pregnancies and marriages.
