{"id":179123,"date":"2016-01-05T07:47:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T07:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=179123"},"modified":"2016-01-05T07:47:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T07:47:36","slug":"catholic-church-linked-to-uganda-child-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/01\/catholic-church-linked-to-uganda-child-labour\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Church linked to Uganda child labour"},"content":{"rendered":"
During his November visit to Africa, the continent which now counts nearly 200m Roman Catholics, Pope Francis said that children were some of the greatest victims of Africa’s historical exploitation by other powers. He also urged young Africans to resist corruption.<\/p>\n
But should the Vatican be doing more to put its own house in order? A BBC investigation has uncovered evidence that church land in Uganda is being used for child labour.<\/p>\n
Alex Turyaritunga has first-hand experience of child exploitation, albeit of a more extreme kind.<\/p>\n
“I was a child soldier, nothing can take that away from my memory,” he tells the BBC. “I remember the war in 1994. I had a gun around my shoulder.”<\/p>\n
Today, Mr Turyaritunga is a nurse with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Uganda.<\/p>\n
He was raised in Kabale, a town nestled in the hills of south-west Uganda. Standing on the hillside, children play in Rwandan schoolyards on the other side of the steep inclines of Kabale.<\/p>\n
But in the mid-1990s, during the time of the Rwandan genocide, it was the sound of war that echoed across the border.<\/p>\n