The House Committee on Education has been granted more time to complete investigations into allegations of sexual violence by security forces on Makerere University students.
The Vice Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. John Twesigye Ntamuhiira, told Parliament on Wednesday, 27 November 2019 that they had failed to talk to the victims of the alleged violence during the earlier given time.
“We discovered that there is more than meets the eye considering the issues of Makerere and that the students who were sexually abused could not show up for the meetings,” Ntamuhiira said during the sitting chaired by Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga.
Ntamuhiira said that the committee has made a final schedule of the meeting and will be able to exhaustively handle the matter and report to Parliament by December10, 2019.
Following the recent students strike over the 15 percent increment in tuition fees at the country’s oldest university, it was claimed that security forces deployed there had sexually harassed students.
Parliament asked its Committee on Education and Sports to among others investigate the allegations and the alleged mismanagement at the university. The resolution followed a motion moved by the Shadow Minister of Education, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga. The Committee was scheduled to report back to the plenary by 13 November 2019.
The Committee held a number of meetings with the students and the management, which defended the fees increment saying that it would help in improving the facilities at the University. However, the students said they were not consulted on the matter and even after the increment there was no visible difference in the state of facilities at the institution.
The students also claimed that some of their fellow students had been brutally beaten and sexually abused by the security forces.