As numbers of people falling of gender-based violence, especially women and girls swell every year, 64 police officers have been retrained to handle the same. The officers were drawn from the directorates of criminal investigations, health services, forensics, and child, and family department.
In the four days refresher course, the trainees were taken through the collection, preservation, and presentation of forensic evidence in cases related to sexual and gender-based violence which is always a missing link in the trail of such offenses in courts of law.
Other than those drawn from CID, directorate of forensic science in Kampala, other participants were those doing similar tasks in territorial policing regions such as Savannah, West Nile and Albertine.
Lucy Ladirathe, the technical advisor Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) said: “SGBV is a violation of human rights. This violation affects women and girls and it has been a challenge in Uganda. We should be vigilant and ensure that all these cases end.”
She said without equipping the police with vital skills, the entire JLOS starting with the prosecutors and judiciary would have no good cases. “We ensure that the justice systems, policies, the regulations, institutions and entities that are within the criminal justice work are equipped and if we don’t have police that is resourced and trained, we are not going to have a good case coming in.”
Andrew Mubiru, the director of forensic science, extoled JLOS and UNFP that have always pumped funds into police programmes. Mubiru encouraged the participants to work hand in hand with other police officers to end SGBV related cases.