SCRIPT MERCY KILLING

By Luk Dewulf

 

00:00:00 – 00:09:22

MERCY KILLING

 

00:11:22 – 00:35:25

In this documentary we show the investigation of two Ugandan friends. Investigative journalist Gerald Bareebe and social worker Rosemary Nambooze team up because they want to find out more about ‘Mercy Killing’. They heard that children with a disability get killed by their parents. Those killings are taboo and remain hidden in society. Gerald started investigating.

 

00:36:36 – 00:50:27

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

I have found out that

many parents kill their disabled children

as an act of mercy.

An act of mercy,

because parents think that,

when they kill them,

they save them from the trouble

they have to go through in their lives.

 

00:58:10 – 01:04:14

VO: 7 years ago journalist Gerald became Abryl’s godfather. The boy has Down Syndrome

 

01:04:42 - 01:11:31

Play.

Next, press next.

Yes.

 

01:12:25 – 01:16:43

Abryl Niwagaba, 6 y – Down Syndrome

Abryl was the first child with a disability he really got to know.

 

01:28:26 -  01:26:10

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

It changed my life.

Not because I’m the godfather of Abryl,

but because I learned a lot

from the experience.

Because in my life

I never met someone with down syndrome

until I met Abryl.

 

01:32:29 – 01:37:33

VO: Rosemary is Abryl’s mother. Everybody knowns her as ‘mama Rose’.

 

01.41.33 – 01:52:34

VO: It hasn’t been easy for her. After Abryl’s birth she found no help at all. So she started her own NGO ‘Angel’s Center for children with special needs.

 

01:54:17 – 02:07:02

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

Guide us, protect us,

in Jesus’ name,

Amen.

 

02:08:10 – 02:20:18

VO: The children are lucky to find help and therapy in Angel’s Center. This is rare in Uganda. Most children with a disability have no access at all to this kind of support.

 

02:25:34 – 02:28:45

VO: Gerald and mama Rose leave the capital Kampala.

 

02:30:30 – 02:35:35

VO: They drive to a mother who confessed to Gerald she’s thinking of killing her daughter.

 

02:40:27 – 02:57:09

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

Gerald shared with us a story

about mercy killing in Ngora.

As a social worker I’m inquisitive to see

what is really taking place in Ngora district

to witness the cases of families

that are almost committing mercy killing.

 

03:02:40 – 03:15:04

Karen Iculet, 3 y - clubfeet

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

Hey Karen. 

I’m mama Rose.

You look so cute baby

She’s sick

-         She’s sick?

 

03:19:20 – 03:26:36

VO: Karens disability is called clubfeet. It is a common birth defect occurring in about one in every 1000 births.

 

03:29:19 – 03:44:20

VO: For Mary the clubfeet are a big problem. She cannot afford the treatment because of extreme poverty.

Mama Rose wants to hear her full story. She tries to understand why Mary is thinking of mercy killing.

 

03:45:45 – 04:32:23

Mary Iculet, mother of Karen

When I gave birth to the baby

my husband rejected me.

He said: You are not my wife.

I’m not the father of the baby.

 

Now he married another woman

who is a Muganda, a tribe in Kampala.

 

I tried to go to Kampala

to follow my husband but he chased me away.

I came back to the village

hoping that I would rejoin my family

but they also rejected me.

 

My people started looking

at my child as a problem in the family.

When the food was served

I had to sit with the child on the side.

They didn’t even give me a cup

I could only drink out

of a separate bottle

I decided to leave.

Even my brothers said:

if you really want to stay here,

you have to take her

back to the father.

 

04:34:30 – 04:41:08

VO: Her husband and her family forced her to consider something unimaginable: killing karen.

 

04:42:35 – 04:48:05

Mary Iculet, mother of Karen

I was really frustrated

and developed an urge to kill this child

Because I had nowhere to go.

 

04:49:43 – 04:55:39

VO: While they are talking, Rose sees Karen is getting more ill. Rose wants to take action.

 

 

04:57:04 - 05:08:42

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

We can stop our interview from here

because I was feeling the temperature…

The temperature is really high.

We will go to a hospital and then we can talk more.

 

05:09:42 - 05:25:33

VO: Mary agrees to come with us to the nearest health center.

Rose is relieved. Having just heard about Mary’s intention to end Karens life, Rose thinks she is withholding medicine from Karen. That’s a passive way of committing a mercy Killing.

 

05:26:27 - 05:29:43

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

Ok, let’s go.

 

05:43:13 - 05:53:15

VO: The health center is only 1 km from her home. Yet, Mary didn’t bring Karen a few days earlier to this center, knowing her child is really ill.

 

06:05:08 - 06:13:40

VO: Rose and Gerald are happy they intervened. The medical team discovered Karen has been infected by the number one killer in Uganda.

 

06:14:39 – 06:24:08

Karen has severe malaria.

We believe that, without taking treatment,

she would die within three days.

 

06:26:46 - 06:37:13

VO: Karen has to stay the night, so we bring Mary back home. Unexpectedly three other  mothers had turned up at her place. They all have disabled children.

 

06:44:02 - 07:01:04

VO: Other parents have joined us

because they knew a social worker was coming.

Now I’m here to introduce to you

another parent who has a child with spina bifida

and another mother who has a child with autism.

They are all going through a lot of stigma.

 

07:01:38 - 07:23:35

VO: Mama Rose and Gerald strive to make a difference. Ugandan fathers, who often abandon their wives and children, should know that disabled children also deserve a full life.

Rose decides to go to the center of Mukura. She wants to share a positive message about disability. She invites the mothers to join her.

 

07:23:45 - 07:30:41

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

We will have

a big community meeting there.

Please come,

we need to create awareness.

 

07:30:41 – 07:33:31

VO: When Rose gets there she feels anxious.

 

07:33:24 - 07:53:31

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

I’m already seeing many people around.

They are not sure

of what we are going to tell them.

It’s a bit scary

because there are young people

and youth, who are idle…

Many different people.

But we want to take a stand.

 

07:58:33 - 08:02:37

If we do not speak about disability,

the community will not be able to help us.

 

08:03:12 - 08:15:00

Joseph Ljook, chairman local council

We request you all to come closer

and listen to their message regarding

all the disabled children in your families.

 

08:15:22 - 08:28:17

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

I want to greet you all.

My name is Rosemary.

I come from Kampala,

I am a mother of a child with a disability

and I run a project

for children with disabilities.

 

08:29:29 - 09:15:07

Are you seeing all these children?

They are wonderfully and fearfully made.

This child is born with spina bifida

and because of that condition

he cannot urinate and pass feces normally.

 

As a community

we want to show you

that you have these people

in your neighborhood.

These people need your help

and not your judgment.

 

Mothers need to be encouraged

and not abused or neglected.

Often these mothers get abandoned

by their husbands,

which is not a good practice.

 

09:22:33 - 09:58:07

Charles Aoja, Inhabitant Mukura Town

However…

…a man like me

cannot take all his time

carrying a disabled child like that one,

fulltime.

Because they are the lame ones.

If the man cannot even carry the normal ones…

That one needs time.

You see?

It becomes a shame to me.

That’s how some of my colleagues

tend to reject those children.

 

09:58:32 - 10:08:44

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

If the community is talking about shame…

I am here to tell you

that disabled children

are not a shame.

 

10:09:06 - 10:14:33

VO: This awareness speech is only a first step and there is still a lot of work to be done.

 

10:15:23 - 10:30:49

Rosemary Nambooze - Director Angel’s Center

A man has testified, that as a man,

it’s a shame for him to carry

a child with a disability.

It will take us a lot of hard work

and more awareness creation

to change the mindset in this area.

 

10:32:27 - 10:52:16

VO: Mama Rose drives home to the children of Angels Center in Kampala.

In the city Mukura Gerald still has some important witnesses to interview. In this small community, we found 2 mothers who admitted killing their disabled child.

 

11:00:12 - 11:12:36

VO: The next morning a woman is waiting in the car. Because of what she has done she wants to stay anomynous. We call her Akol.

 

11:13:03 - 11:24:07

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

We have a very fascinating case

of a woman from Ngora district.

She confessed to me

about taking part in mercy killing.

 

11:39:14 - 11:54:42

We drove from Soroti to this place.

It’s 5 km from Soroti town.

We are looking for a place

that is safe for this mother of five

to give us her confession about mercy killing.

 

11:59:38 - 12:05:39

VO: It was not easy to convince Akol. For the first time ever she will testify.

 

12:12:46 - 12:39:24

Akol, anomynous mother

The legs of the child

were facing backwards.

His eyes were not in the proper position,

they were too high on his forehead,

he was not normal for a human being.

His head was swollen,

it looked as if he had two heads.

Even his arms were short.

The way the baby was formed…

From the stomach up it was not normal,

it looked like an animal.

 

12:42:22 - 12:49:44

VO: Three months after giving birth, the father abandoned Akol. She was left on her own, raising 6 children.

 

12:50:28 - 13:01:44

Akol, anomynous mother

They said I had produced a disabled child

that had no place in the clan.

And also my inlaws

said they don’t produce such a child.

 

13:02:10 - 13:18:13

VO: In Uganda everybody is born within a clan, a group of people who share one ancestor.

The husband’s clan did not want to be weakened by a disabled child. They excluded Akol and her baby. She had to bear the burden alone.

 

13:19:38 - 13:55:00

Akol, anomynous mother

Because of his condition

I had to treat him every day.

I didn’t have any support.

Even when I took him to the hospital,

the nurses were scared of him

and they didn’t treat him properly.

They told me that my child was Imukama,

a feral cat that lives in the bushes of Uganda.

 

Because of that they said:

we are not going to waste medicine on him,

we prefer to give it to other children.

He is meant to die.

 

13:55:21 – 14:00:37

VO: Akol felt there was no way out of this misery, she had no one to rely on.

 

14:03:11 – 14:11:23

Akol, anomynous mother

It started to disturb me that the medication

and other needs were not available,

I got frustrated and angry

 

14:11:27 - 14:17:16

VO: As she continues Akol describes in detail how she murdered her own son.

 

14:17:25 - 15:02:39

Akol, anomynous mother

I returned home

late at night and drank waragi (local gin).

At my place. I looked at him

and picked him up from the ground

and threw him down.

When I did that, I grabbed his neck,

twisted it and I strangled the baby.

Thereafter I listened to his heartbeat

and it was not beating,

He was not turning,

he was not breathing.

When I touched his neck,

it was soft, there was like nothing in it.

So I waited for two hours

to be sure he was dead.

Then I told one of my neighbours,

that neighbour told another neighbour,

a few people gathered

and they didn’t care at al.

They didn’t even mourn.

People laughed at me.

 

15:09:29 - 15:36:11

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

What forces a mother,

with her love for her child,

to engage in mercy killing?

 

Interviewing her, I have learned

that the conditions in which this mother

gave birth to this baby,

her family, her clan,

her husband who abandoned her,

all this forced this mother to conduct

this heinous act of mercy killing.

 

15:42:25 - 15:44:46

VO: The next morning Gerald meets another woman.

 

15:47:05 – 15:50:20

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

Is that where the father

of the baby is from?

 

15:50:46 - 15:56:46

VO: Just like the first mother we won’t reveal her identity. We name her Apolot.

 

15:57:38 – 16:09:14

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

We have a mother who has

a very intriguing story about mercy killing.

We actually don’t know

what the story is about.

We’ve been referred to her

by a colleague.

 

16:09:09 - 16:16:13

VO: Again we take precautions and drive Apolot to an isolated area so she can tell her story safely.

 

16:16:22 - 16:21:40

Gerald Bareebe, Investigative journalist

Ma’am, from the beginning,

can you tell us how your story started?

 

16:23:13 - 16:48:41

Apolot, anomynous mother

When I gave birth to a lame child

my husband did not like this child

and even other people were looking at me.

People started

mocking me,

and my husband rejected me.

He would not even help me with money,

that would have helped me

to take the baby to the hospital.

As a husband and wife should do.

 

16:50:11 - 17:04:27

VO: When the girl was 9 months old, the husband abandoned his wife and 4 children and left for Kampala. After years of frustration, when the disabled girl reached the age of 6, it became more than Apolot could endure.

 

17:05:08 - 18:09:06

Apolot, anomynous mother

I intended to end her life

because I was tired of her

and I still had other children

to look after.

There was no help

and I had nowhere to go

There was no one else

to take care of her.

I came up with a plan

to kill her.

 

When I came back

from the bush to collect firewood.

I threw the wood down.

I loosened my sheet I use

to tie the baby on my back.

I first opened the upper knot,

then I opened the one down

and she fell backwards.

I checked the neck,

because she had landed on it,

with all this

I suffered more than a dog.

 

I started crying,

when I was crying.

One of my children came out the kitchen

and ran towards me.

She asked ‘mummy why did you

kill the baby like that’.

I said I am crying because

there is nothing I can do,

the baby is dead.

 

18:24:18 - 18:40:37

I would not do it again

because I felt pain in my heart.

when I met another mother at the market,

her child had the same kind of disability.

Then I felt in my heart

that it would have been better

if my child would have died

of natural causes

I shouldn’t have

thrown her from my back.

 

18:40:49 - 18:46:06

VO: Today, she is still alone, even though the husband has returned to Mukura.

 

18:50:13 - 18:58:47

Apolot, anomynous mother

He brought his wife from Kampala

to our village.

Up till now they are still living together.

Look at me,

I’m a rejected woman.

 

19:09:44 - 19:36:26

VO: Both women were rejected and abandoned. As Gerald first heard of the term mercy killing he assumed that the mercy applied to the disabled child. As he now hears Akol and Apolot confess it seems they rather granted mercy upon themselves.

An African saying goes: It takes a village to raise a child. As it seems, it also takes a village to kill one.

 

19:58:32 - 20:31:08

VO: Today Gerald meets Fred Owere

Yes, Fred, how are you?

-         I’m ok, welcome.

The manager of Global Care Uganda. He shares with us the story of Alupo, a ten year old blind girl who survived a brutal attempt of mercy killing.

For her safety we hide her identity. Alupo is not her real name. Her mother lived in Kikyinjaji, a large slum in Soroti.

 

20:33:28 - 20:48:48

Fred Owere, Manager Global Care

This woman is a prostitute

and I think in that same business

is how she conceived the child.

When she gave birth

she attempted to bury the child alive

simply because she discovered

the baby was blind.

 

20:50:05 - 21:04:30

VO: The neighbors saved the baby.

After many years in an orphanage Alupo arrived at Global Care.

The NGO rented a house for her and Alupo and tried to give them a fresh start.

 

21:07:30 - 21:28:44

Fred Owere, Manager Global Care

This woman would kill this child.

Do you know that she smokes marihuana?

At night she locks the house

and goes to the street for prostitution.

She comes back at six in the morning.

The child can cry the whole night

while there is nobody in the house.

When she smoked her marihuana

she forces that child to smoke and drink.

 

21:30:40 - 21:35:30

VO: Alupo was already 7 by then. She had no place to stay anymore.

 

21:39:39 - 21:47:08

VO: After many hard years Fred found a home for Alupo. She now lives in a boarding school for blind children.

 

21:54:49 - 21:59:41

VO: Alupo lives here during the week and in the weekend. So they know her very well.

 

22:11:16 - 22:17:10

VO: Her class teacher Christine works with her every day. She sees a traumatized girl.

 

22:18:13 - 22:29:04

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

She is too rude to friends

and towards teachers

she has a bad language.

 

22:29:35 - 22:32:33

VO: Being neglected all her life marked her.

 

22:33:13 - 22:39:05

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

She is somebody who likes to be alone.

She doesn’t want to share with others.

 

22:41:35 - 22:48:20

VO: Then we finally meet Alupo. She is shy and walks away. We follow her to her class.

 

22:56:25 - 23:00:02

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

Hello, P1 (name of the class).

- Hello, teacher.

 

23:00:15 - 23:05:01

VO: Teacher Christine’s first priority, is to improve the social skills of the children.

 

23:05:33 - 23:20:27

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

Stand up and greet.

Say: I am greeting

-         I am greeting.

I am greeting.

- I am greeting

 

You shake his hand

and say: I am greeting.

 

23:20:40 - 23:30:32

This year she is trying.

There is some improvement.

She is trying.

She can at least write six dots now.

She can even write some letters.

 

23:32:39 - 23:37:13

VO: Teacher Christine doesn’t only focus on the problems.

 

23:39:00 - 23:53:46

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

What we have identified

is that she is a musician.

She can sing very well,

she can play the instruments very well.

That is how we see her,

she is talented in music.

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

23:54:27 - 23:57:28

One, two, three, begin.

 

23:59:27 - 24:02:05

Alupo, 11 j - Blind

Hello.

Hello.

 

24:02:48 - 24:06:04

Christine Pedun, teacher St. Francis

You sing, choose a song you like.

 

24:06:21 - 25:02:27

Alupo, 11 j - Blind

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

Hello, hello

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

25:09:44 – 26:17:36

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

Hello, hello

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

Welcome, our dear visitors.

We are happy to see you today.

Sit down and listen to us.

P1 children are singing for you.

 

Luk Dewulf