Defilement remains a big problem and one of the repeated forms of child abuse in Lango sub-region due to various factors, official have revealed.

According to police, most times parents of victims opt for cash gifts and bribes from defilers in order to settle cases of defilement out of court.

Police say girls as young as 13 years are defiled while others impregnated by older men in the sub-region.

Information available at Lira Central Police Station, for instance, indicates that at least four cases of defilement are reported every month. This means that a girl is being defiled every week in Lira District alone.

Police say the situation could be the same in other regions countrywide.

Currently, dozens of men are serving their sentences in prisons across the Lango sub-region over defilement, according to the law enforcement agents.

Last week, a defilement case involving a three-year-old girl was up for hearing at the High Court in Lira District.

Before the hearing could commenced, Resident Judge Winifred Nabisinde blocked all those who were eager to attend the court session, including uniform officers: police and prison staff.

The same court also handed a six years’ sentence against an 18-year-old man for defiling a 17-year-old girl.

Defilement is defined as having sexual intercourse with a girl who is below the age of eighteen years. According to the Ugandan law, anybody below 18 years is considered to be a child. It does not matter whether they have consented or not to having sexual intercourse.

While critics blame police for failing to handle the plight of defilement victims, police seem to find even bigger problems in their strong-willed struggle to have defilers face the law.

The Lira District police commander, Mr Joel Tubanone, says some parents strike deals with the offenders to withdraw cases placed against them.

Mr Tubanone says parents are given money or animals like cows and goats to kill cases.

“Our community is losing it (defilement case) because of poverty. People start looking at how much they can get from the perpetrator, and they think if they reap many cows from a defilement case, they would be rich and live happily ignoring the victims,” he said.