Tragedy befell the 18-year-old girl when she was tricked into going home to purportedly check on her sick mother. Upon reaching home, she was grabbed and forcefully married off. The girl who was fully registered, even attended the pre-exam briefing last Friday morning. The transitional UCE exams started yesterday Monday, and a total of 349,445 candidates are registered for the exams according to the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb).

The head teacher Pokot SS, Boniface Eculu, said the married-off girl was very bright and was especially doing very well in science subjects. He said the arrangement to hastily marry off the girl to a Kenyan rich man was made by her family.

“They convinced the girl that her mother was very sick and had no one to help her,” lamented the head teacher.  “So the poor girl rushed home to see the situation of the mother, only to be forcefully taken to Kenya for the man to marry her. We are feeling a lot of pain for her and for our school community,” said Eculu.

Amudat district Anthony Lowoth said early marriages in the Pokot community are still a big challenge, hampering the region from benefitting from education.

“Imagine a girl who has been struggling from primary one to senior four, but instead of allowing her first sit her papers, they even denied her that chance, it hurts so much,” he said.

Lowoth, however, said the examination went on well on the first day, adding that from the two senior secondary schools in Amudat district, six candidates never turned up for the exam including the girl who has been forcefully married off.

“We have two senior secondary schools in the whole district: Pokot SS and Pokot Girls Karita SS,” he said. “In Pokot SS they were 53 candidates registered but five of them never turned up including one girl who was forcefully married off, while in Pokot girls they were 33 candidates but one candidate, a boy just decided to go to Kenya to do business,” he said.

Moses Ruto, a parent and resident of Locengenge in Amudat town council, said parents in Amudat need to be sensitized to appreciate the value of education. 

“Most of the parents in Karamoja think livestock is much better than education and this is wrong, drought can kill all livestock but someone can still buy livestock if he or she is working,” he said.

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