Kidnapping and Marriage by Capture: A Persisting Nightmare
Imagine living in a place where simply walking to fetch water or heading home from school could make you a target. In some Ugandan regions, particularly Karamoja, this is an everyday reality for young girls. Here, marriage by capture isn't just a story from the past—it's inflicted with chilling regularity. Local testimonies paint a disturbing picture: men watch girls’ routines, waiting for them to be alone. Once they find an opportunity, they abduct the girls, rape them, and then claim them as 'wives.' It’s not only cruel but also tears entire families apart, as girls are forced to live with their attackers.
For many, marriage by capture sits alongside persistent child marriage rates. Girls from struggling families are especially vulnerable, as poverty often pushes parents to treat daughters as means of financial relief—either to reduce household size or collect bride price. In some cases, girls themselves look to marriage just to meet their basic needs, like hygiene products, because other options aren’t available. There’s little choice for these girls, and their voices are easily ignored in decisions concerning their own futures.
Poverty, Conflict, and Cultural Barriers Compound the Trauma
For Ugandan girls and women, the pain isn’t just physical or immediate. Forced marriages and early pregnancies lead to dangerous childbirths, especially for those too young to cope with complications. Right now, 20-30% of mothers dying in childbirth in Uganda are adolescents—babies born to them face high risks of coming into the world too soon, too small, or lifeless.
Returning home after such abuse isn’t a happy ending for most survivors. Many find their families and communities refuse to accept them, shunned not only for the violence inflicted on them, but for 'breaking cultural norms.' The shame can be so severe that girls are declared 'dead' to their relatives. Without support, starting over is almost impossible.
The scars run even deeper for women who were victims during Uganda's turbulent years with the Lord’s Resistance Army. Thousands of girls were kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to bear children with their captors. Today, those mothers are often locked in cycles of extreme poverty, and their children are denied basic services like school access simply because no one knows who their fathers are.
The legal system, while theoretically equipped to challenge forced marriage and sexual violence, too often falls short in practice. Some families even accept dowries from perpetrators and physically force victims back to their tormentors, feeding the cycle instead of breaking it. The truth is that cultural traditions and poverty often override any laws meant to protect girls.
- Poverty pressures parents to marry off daughters early.
- Girls have limited say about who or when to marry.
- Survivors of abduction and rape face lifelong stigma and rejection.
- Teen pregnancy and childbirth risks remain dangerously high.
- Victims of conflict-era abductions are left without support or recognition.
Added to this are deeply rooted gender stereotypes—many families still believe girls are less valuable than boys and see no point in investing in their education. Some traditions even mark a girl as marriage-ready simply because her body has started to change, regardless of her mental or emotional maturity. In a few communities, female genital mutilation is considered a standard path for marriage eligibility, adding another layer of trauma.
International efforts like the DREAMS Initiative—which aims to fight HIV infections among adolescent girls—and a handful of global partnerships are trying to tackle these problems. Uganda has signed up for programs focusing on ending violence against children and promoting girls’ education. But the results are slow, as deeply entrenched attitudes don’t change overnight. It’s clear that for Uganda’s girls, the fight for basic rights is ongoing, as legal fixes and good intentions haven’t yet neutralized their daily risks.