Moroto Municipality has become a hub for teenage commercial sex, raising fears among leaders and locals.
Concerned locals have petitioned the Municipality authorities headed by the Mayor to regulate child prostitution as teenagers from the age of fourteen years are now openly engaged in the practice.
The Mayor of Moroto Municipality, Mohamed Ismail, says they have received complaints and observed that most of these girls are either orphaned or dropped out of school.
Ismail says the government needs to intervene to ensure they are forced back to schooling.
“Most of these girls are total orphans, others have both parents but they have left their homes for commercial sex work in the Municipality, which is so dangerous,” — he said.
He appeals to development partners operating in Moroto Municipality to come in and do massive sensitization to encourage the girls to return to school.
The Moroto Municipal Deputy Mayor, Mary Nachap, says they have observed that some parents are instigating their children into prostitution in order to fend for their families.
Nachap explains that most of the girls are sent from further villages to communities for work as housemaids, while others end up in the sex business.
“These girls come for casual labor in town but they end up becoming commercial sex workers,” he said.
He has promised a door-to-door crackdown to arrest those employing teenagers as maids as school resumes.
However, locals have blamed the problem on the high cost of living and increased rates of unemployment among the population.
“It is poverty driving our girls to participate in these dangerous activities. How I wish the government could come up with a program of supporting the girls to go back to school,” — he said.
