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Ugandan soldier who raped a Somali lady has been dismissed from the army

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The Ugandan Soldier who was found guilty of raping a Somali lady (Courtesy)

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KAMPALA—Uganda People’s Defense Force soldier who defiled a Somali lady has been dismissed from the force by a court martial based in Kampala, Uganda.

Raphael Olinga who has been a peace keeper in Somalia, received on Monday afternoon a sentence of dismissal from UPDF for defiling a girl in Somalia three years ago.

While giving him a sentence, the Court martial chairman Lt. Gen. Andrew Gutti said, the maximum sentence for Olinga should have been life imprisonment, but being a first offender, court has decided to dismiss him from the army.

“Such cases attract life imprisonment. Since Mr. Olinga is first time offender, I hereby dismiss him from the Uganda People’s Defense Force,” said the judge.

The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations have documented high levels of sexual and gender-based violence against Somali women and girls, particularly the displaced.

After initially denying allegations of sexual abuse, the AMISOM leadership has started to take some measures to tackle the problem.

AMISOM troop-contributing countries, to varying degrees, have established procedures to deal with their forces’ misconduct. Troops have received pre-deployment trainings on the AUC Code of Conduct, and legal advisors and military investigators have been deployed to Somalia to follow-up on allegations of misconduct. Most importantly, the Ugandan forces deployed a court martial to Mogadishu for a year in 2013.

Since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, state collapse and civil war have contributed in making Somalia one of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian crises. The armed conflict has led to rampant violations of the laws of war, including unlawful killings, rape, torture, and looting, committed by all parties to the conflict, causing massive civilian suffering.

The AU soldiers, relying on Somali intermediaries, have used a range of tactics, including humanitarian aid, to coerce vulnerable women and girls into sexual activity which mostly end up into rape.

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