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