Gov’t Has No Money for Pads; Parents Should Play their Role – Minister Janet

The First Lady and Education Minister Janet Museveni has called on parents to play their role while bringing up their children especially girls by providing them with needs such as sanitary towels, adding that Government has limited resources to procure pads for adolescent girls.

Mrs Museveni made the remarks while officiating the International Day of a girl child at State House Entebbe on Tuesday. Although the International Day of a Girl Child was commemorated on Sunday 11th October 2020, Uganda marked the day yesterday.

“I am here to report to you that Government has not been able to do that yet (provide pads) because we have shortage of resources. And I want you as children to begin to know that Uganda is still in the rebuilding process as a country. This Government has so much work to do and it cannot do all of it. That is why we need to build this country together with the families, with all Ugandans. Every one of us has a role to play,” she said.

“I don’t want you to grow up thinking that it is the Government that is giving up on you. That is not true. This Government has so much that it has to fill into the gaps. That is why it needed to provide the sanitary towels even in schools, which has not been possible yet. But, we are planning and we believe we will do it but it is not yet done,” she added.

Mrs Museveni noted that families have a role to play and told the families that there are issues which affect the young girls because their families are not playing their role.

In addition to provision of sanitary towels by parents, Mrs Museveni said that parents and guardians should also talk to their children about HIV/ AIDS which has significantly been taken up by Government through various campaigns.

“That is a role also that should be played by a mother. I want to tell you that I was brought up by a mother who had not had education at all. My mother never went to school but she is the one who brought me up to know what to do as a child, as an adolescent, as a woman and as a mother because there are certain things that only families can do, that Governments cannot do. Families do play a role of bringing up their own children in the world. That is why I am saying that we need to bring parents in these conferences or meetings so that we sensitize them, we mobilize them to know the role they must play so that each one of us can play their own right role,” she added.

Mrs Museveni while campaign alongside President Museveni in the 2016 general elections, promised to provide sanitary towels to the school going children.

After the promise was not fulfilled, Makerere University Researcher and outspoken critic of ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) Government, Dr Stella Nyanzi protested and initiated a campaign to solicit pads for adolescent school going girls.

Nyanzi would later take her campaign online by vehemently critiquing and abusing Mrs Museveni using her social media pages over the latter’s failure to fulfil her promise.

Nyanzi was later arrested and charged for computer misuse.

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