What does it mean for a country to step away from a law designed to confront one of its most widespread forms of violence? In Uganda, the scale of sexual violence is neither abstract nor anecdotal, it is measurable, persistent, and deeply rooted.
Data from the Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys (UDHS) paints a troubling picture. The 2016 survey found that more than one in five women, about 22 percent, had experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.
Among younger women, the trend is equally alarming: nearly 10 percent of girls aged 15–19 and close to 20 percent of women aged 20–24 reported sexual assault, with over half experiencing it within just the year preceding the survey. The 2022 UDHS reinforces this reality, showing that 17 percent of women and 6 percent of men aged 15–49 experienced sexual violence in the 12 months prior to the survey.
For children, the situation is even more stark. The 2015 Violence Against Children Survey (VACS) found that one in three girls (35%) and one in six boys (17%) aged 18–24 had experienced sexual violence during childhood. Among those aged 13–17, one in four girls (25%) and one in ten boys (11%) reported sexual violence in the previous year.
Administrative data tells a similar story. Uganda Police records show rape cases rising from 1,419 in 2015 to 1,667 in 2024. Defilement remains the most pervasive offence. In 2022 alone, 12,780 child victims were recorded, 12,470 of them girls. Of these, 8,960 were defilement cases and 3,620 were aggravated defilement, involving especially severe circumstances.
These figures are not isolated. They reflect a structural problem, one compounded by Uganda’s demographic reality. The 2024 National Population and Housing Census confirms that Uganda remains one of the youngest countries in the world, with a large share of its population under 18, the group most vulnerable to sexual abuse.
The consequences are profound. Research consistently links sexual violence to teenage pregnancy, HIV exposure, unsafe abortions, school dropout, and long-term psychological trauma. Yet, organisations such as UNICEF and UN Women have repeatedly highlighted that many cases go unreported, meaning official statistics likely represent only a fraction of the true scale.
Taken together, the evidence points to a crisis that is widespread, persistent, and under-addressed. It is within this context that the withdrawal of the Sexual Offences Bill, 2024 raises difficult questions.
Introduced by Anna Adeke, the Bill sought to consolidate Uganda’s scattered legal provisions on sexual offences into a single, coherent framework. Its withdrawal, largely justified on the basis that existing laws already criminalise many of the offences, focuses on whether laws exist. But the deeper issue is whether those laws work effectively as a system.
Uganda’s legal framework is not absent; it is fragmented. Provisions are spread across multiple statutes, including the Penal Code Act, the Domestic Violence Act (2010), the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act (2009), the Employment Act, the Children’s Act, and the Anti-Pornography Act, each with differing definitions, procedures, and protections.
For legal practitioners, this complexity may be manageable. For survivors, it can be overwhelming.
Consider a survivor in a remote district such as Kaabong. Reporting sexual abuse does not trigger a single, clear legal pathway. Instead, her case may be interpreted differently depending on how it is framed and who handles it. One officer may treat it as defilement under the Penal Code; another may identify elements of trafficking or exploitation.
These differences shape the charges, procedures, and protections available, introducing uncertainty into a process that should deliver clarity and justice. In such a system, outcomes depend not only on the law, but on interpretation, coordination, and sometimes chance.
This is precisely what legal consolidation seeks to address. By bringing dispersed provisions into a single framework, consolidation improves clarity, strengthens enforcement, and enhances access to justice. Countries such as Kenya and South Africa have undertaken similar reforms, not because offences were absent, but because fragmented systems were limiting justice.
Uganda has already committed itself to addressing sexual violence, including through frameworks aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 5 on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls. The question, therefore, is not whether the country recognises the problem, but whether it is willing to strengthen the systems designed to confront it.
The withdrawal of the Sexual Offences Bill represents more than the loss of a legislative proposal. It is a missed opportunity to align the legal system with the scale and complexity of the problem. It is a missed chance to simplify the law for those who enforce it and make it more accessible to those who depend on it.
Because when legal systems are fragmented, their failures are often quiet, but their consequences are not. They are reflected in the gap between the number of people who experience sexual violence and those who obtain justice.
A comprehensive law could have clarified definitions, streamlined prosecution, strengthened survivor protections, and sent a clear public signal of commitment. Because legislation does more than punish, it communicates priorities.
The statistics are clear: the problem is not receding. The real question is whether Uganda will match its response to the scale of the crisis, or continue to let opportunities for reform pass, while the number of victims remains unchanged.
Justine K. Safari holds a Bachelor of Science in Population Studies from Makerere University (MUK) and is a final-year Law student at Kampala International University (KIU). She works with the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), Kampala.
E-mail: justinesafari78@gmail.com
