U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

Tel: +254 2 622147
Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 439
12 - 18 July 2008


CONTENTS:

UGANDA: Poverty, wars and alcohol perpetuate domestic violence
DRC: Children "languishing in Ituri prisons"
CONGO: Tackling child trafficking


UGANDA: Poverty, wars and alcohol perpetuate domestic violence

Armed conflict, poverty, alcohol abuse and cultural attitudes are 
responsible for the high incidence of domestic violence in Ugandan 
communities, according to a report presented to parliament by jurists.

Some 92 percent of 6,000 people surveyed by the Uganda Law Reform 
Commission reported some form of domestic violence was taking place in 
their communities. The highest levels were recorded in northern Uganda, 
which is struggling to emerge from more than two decades of conflict 
between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and government troops.

[Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79259]


DRC: Children "languishing in Ituri prisons"

Dozens of children are languishing in adult prisons in the Democratic 
Republic of Congo's northeastern Ituri district, despite a legal 
prohibition, according to a UN official.

"In Ituri, there are over 70 children in conflict with the law - 57 are 
in prison in Bunia, alongside three babies who are accompanying their 
mothers," Nandy Estelle Ouattara, the officer in charge of the UN 
Mission in the DRC (MONUC) child protection section in Bunia, said. 
"There are 11 children in Mahagi - with their own compound in the prison 
- and there are three in Aru, who are held alongside the adults - no 
separation."

In the central prison in Bunia, the men stay separately while the women 
and children stay together, a children's advocate said.

[Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79240]


CONGO: Tackling child trafficking

Sixteen-year-old Mayi doesn't remember exactly when she was taken from 
the Togolese capital Lome to Congo's second city Pointe-Noire by her 
"guardian".

When not selling food on the streets, she says she "sweeps the house, 
washes clothes or the dishes and takes care of the children".

Lucie, also 16 and from Benin, spends her days selling goods along the 
aisles of the market in Poto-Poto, a district of the capital, 
Brazzaville, where many West Africans live.

[Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79284]


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