A girl in an advanced stage of pregnancy, no older than 12, looks down at her hands as the president of the city council asks her about her last medical examination.
It's the kind of question a family member should be asking her, but this is not a normal pregnancy.
The girl lives alone in a small house in the Kitgum district and is expected to give birth any minute.
Her parents' cassava farming business failed, so they returned to their home village to find money for the family.
"She was left here because it's a little closer to the school," says Obit City Council President David Livingston.
"But the awkward thing is that the next room in the house is where people drink. That fact alone exposed her to big problems."
No one knows who the father of the child is or what happened.
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A shocking rise in cases of sexual abuse among girls in northern Uganda has been revealed following reports that there has been a fourfold jump in the number of pregnant women between the ages of 10 and 14 following the pandemic.
The BBC's African Eye looked at why the perpetrators get away with it.
'Three cases a week'
BBC African Eye was given permission to film this girl, who will not be named, only because Livingston wants to highlight the sexual violence that is perpetrated in the community.
"We have three defamation cases every week. Sometimes when we catch the perpetrator, we have to tie him up with a rope and take him to the police.
"But then they don't bother to push the case to the end."
He is already in over his head with that degree of impunity.
"There is no one who can really support a person who has been raped.
"I see such justice as weak justice," says the president of the city council.
Defamation means illegal sexual intercourse with a girl under 18 years of age.
According to Uganda's Health Management Information System, the number of pregnancies among girls aged between 10 and 14 jumped 366 percent during the country's first Covid-2020 curfew (March-June XNUMX).
At the Gulu Regional General Hospital, almost a quarter of all pregnancies in the last fiscal year were to girls under 18, the age of consent for sexual intercourse in Uganda.
Dr. Baifo Arvinho, head of the obstetrics and gynecology department, says: "When I talk to teenage mothers, I find out that they were all dishonored. They're teenagers, they shouldn't be pregnant."
"You will see that the highest percentage of those who die from complications during childbirth are very young mothers. The younger the mother, the greater the complication."
'Sexual abuse was a war strategy'
The high level of sexual violence is believed to be a legacy of two decades of war in northern Uganda, notorious for its brutality.
The war was started by Joseph Konj, the head of God's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that wanted to overthrow the government.
His fighters were known for inhumane treatment of abductees: mutilation, cutting off lips and limbs, and forcing people to obey through fear.
It is estimated that around 40.000 children were abducted and forced to become soldiers or sex slaves, and 1,7 million people lived in camps for internally displaced people.
The rebels left Uganda in 2008, but the consequences of their atrocities are still present today, according to gender rights activist Pamela Angvech, director of Women's Economic Development and Globalization in Gulu, a grassroots NGO.
"Living in a toxic minefield environment had long-term consequences for the community.
"People are used to seeing dead bodies, people are used to seeing death. The LRA used sexual abuse as a military strategy."
"That's why I say that the war was fought in women's bodies and that women became the battlefield."
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Very few people received justice for the heinous crimes committed during the war.
LRA commander Dominic Ongwen was tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and in February 2021 he was found guilty on 61 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Konja is also wanted by the ICC, but his whereabouts are still unknown.
According to lawyer Eunice Lakaraber Latim, who works for the non-governmental organization Caritas, that legacy of lack of accountability flourishes in northern Uganda to this day.
"When I was growing up in Gulu, I saw a lot of children being dishonored, and most parents didn't have the resources to fight for the justice their children deserved."
'My child lives in pain'
Latim led African Eye to the family of a three-year-old girl who was raped by a relative.
The mother discovered it only when she noticed that the child was walking differently.
When the police came to arrest her cousin, she says they asked her for money to "transport" him.
"Then I was expected to feed the prisoner," says Latim.
"You literally have to pay to get justice. You have to pay for the fuel to get the suspect arrested."
"You have to feed him while he's still at the police station."
The suspect was detained for six months, but because some legal procedures were not followed, he was released on bail.
The mother simply did not have the means to pursue the case to the end.
Police and medical reports confirm that the three-year-old girl was infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
"My child is still in pain, even now. The infection never healed," says her mother.
"He must serve a prison sentence. I didn't want it to end like this."
Latim says it's not uncommon for the justice system to fail victims, saying they've had a large number of cases that simply fall apart.
"There is a lot of corruption. People here are not afraid to commit crimes, because they say, if you have money, you will get away with it. It's happening."
Nachula Damali, regional police commander in Aswa, admits there are problems with how some cases are handled, but denies corruption is widespread.
"We must not ask the victim to pay for our services. But sometimes I have to admit we can run out of gas, yes."
"As far as corruption is concerned, there is a general belief that police officers are corrupt, but not all of them, just like in any other institution. We have good cops and we have bad cops."
Minister of State for Northern Uganda Grace Fridom Kwiutswini also admits there are problems.
"I cannot deny that there is corruption. Corruption is present. It exists at all levels, even at the ministerial level," she says.
"We have defamation laws, we have incest laws, but somehow people manage to get around the law, bribe the police and then the police say, 'Okay, go and settle it at home.' There are cases of criminal prosecution, but their number is not too great."
None of the suspects in the cases covered by the BBC's African Eye have been prosecuted.
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