By Khalid Kizito Ssekabembe, Law Student at Makerere University and CEHURD Intern

I write this article in deep pain, carrying a heavy conviction that far too many young people in our country are suffering and dying in silence. Today, Uganda has increasingly become a society where young people who are struggling with their mental health may face judgement rather than compassion. When a young person gathers the courage to tell their parents, friends, teachers, religious leaders, or society that they are suicidal or struggling with their mental health, they may be met with a wall of judgement, religious or cultural condemnation, or dismissal.

Even in an era where counselling and mental health awareness are increasingly discussed, young people continue to experience severe psychological distress. Our collective response remains inadequate, and in some cases, society appears to prioritise punishment over compassion. This reality is also reflected in our laws, where attempting to take one’s own life remains a criminal offence under the Penal Code. If we do not wake up as a nation and intentionally work to protect and support young people, we risk losing an entire generation to a crisis that can no longer be ignored.

As a young man who has recently finished university, I have witnessed firsthand how pervasive this crisis can feel among young people. I am not suggesting that every young person experiences suicidal thoughts, but I believe that the pressure surrounding today’s youth creates an environment in which many struggle silently. We live in a high-pressure environment marked by academic stress, limited employment opportunities, financial difficulties, relationship challenges, and intense family expectations. Yet, mental health remains severely neglected.

Mental health is often discussed casually, but meaningful attention, resources, and sustained interventions have not always followed those conversations. Too many young people are expected to endure their struggles quietly until the situation becomes critical.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 15–29 globally, with about 700,000 people reportedly dying by suicide (World Health Organization). In Uganda, recent statistics indicate that, in 2024 alone, 190 suicide attempts were recorded, 59 resulted in deaths, and 18 were reported as attempted, with young people disproportionately affected.

Definition of Suicide

Suicide is death caused by self-directed injurious behaviour with the intent to die as a result of the behaviour. Suicide is a global health concern, with 79% of annual cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

However, suicide remains illegal in many African countries, including Uganda. The criminalisation of suicide attempts can create additional fear and stigma around seeking help. A person experiencing suicidal thoughts should be encouraged to seek immediate support rather than be made to fear punishment or condemnation.

Although suicide rates in Uganda decreased from 15.91 per 100,000 population in 2000 to 9.9 per 100,000 in 2017, the rates remained highest among young people, with approximately 700,000 university students. The university population represents a particularly important group to consider.

University students transition from adolescence to adulthood, a stage associated with numerous physical, psychological, social, and spiritual stressors. For some, these pressures can become overwhelming and contribute to serious mental health challenges. Previous studies have reported high numbers of suicides among university students.

If the government and society were to pay closer attention to these critical triggers and provide meaningful interventions, we could significantly reduce mental health crises and potentially prevent deaths. Some of the most pressing and often overlooked factors include the following:

1. Academic pressure, bullying, and institutional neglect

The tragic reality of youth suicide in Uganda is linked to academic pressure, school bullying, and institutional neglect. These issues represent some of the most pressing challenges facing young people today. Far too often, children are placed in environments where their worth is measured almost entirely by academic performance. When parents condition affection or approval on academic performance and teachers use discouraging or humiliating language, schools cease to feel like places of learning and instead become environments of psychological distress.

For example, the Daily Monitor reported a story involving a Senior Four student at Kagamba SS in Ntungamo District who took his own life after reportedly scoring poor grades in his O-Level examinations. This tragic outcome occurred despite his extensive efforts to study in an attempt to perform well.

Studies have found that university students commonly experience suicidal behaviour towards the end of their academic programmes. An investigation published by Cambridge University Press on 30 April 2021 also found that only four students took their own lives during their first year. This may be attributable to the compounding pressure students experience as they progress through university. Among students, academic disappointment may therefore be one of the significant risk factors associated with suicidal distress.

Many suicide deaths occur in hostels, rental accommodation, or the homes where students live. This highlights the importance of ensuring that students have safe environments and people with whom they can communicate. Communication has also changed with advances in technology. While written suicide notes were historically one way individuals communicated their distress, social media posts, private messages, and other forms of digital communication have increasingly become part of how young people express emotional pain.

2. Breakups and romantic relationship challenges

A number of variables related to adolescent romantic relationships have been associated with the risk of suicide attempts or deaths among adolescents. These include incongruent partnership role identities, negative sexual experiences and stressful events, breakups, and relationship disputes. Nevertheless, the extent to which romantic relationship issues contribute to suicide risk remains difficult to establish.

For example, one study found that 76% of suicide attempts among adolescents who presented at an inner-city emergency department were related to relationship disputes, including conflicts involving peers, family members, and romantic partners (National Institutes of Health).

According to the Daily Monitor, Reagan Opito, a Senior Three student at Aboke High School in Kole District, reportedly died by suicide following an alleged disappointment. The deceased reportedly left a suicide note indicating that he had decided to end his life because his “longtime girlfriend had terminated their relationship.”

We have also seen very young men who have invested heavily in romantic partners, sometimes paying their partners’ tuition, entertainment expenses, and other costs. When such relationships end, some experience intense emotional devastation. The same can happen to young girls who experience painful relationship disappointments, particularly when they feel that they have compromised their personal boundaries in a relationship.

3. Family disputes and divorce

Family disputes and divorce frequently destabilise a teenager’s home environment, sometimes stripping away their core sense of emotional security. This instability can trigger intense psychological distress, manifesting as severe depression and persistent anxiety.

According to research by Crown Adolescent Health, divorce can be a pivotal moment in a family’s life, often reshuffling relationships and daily routines. Studies have shown that teenagers from divorced families are at greater risk of developing mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

What matters most is that children and teenagers should not be left to carry the emotional consequences of family conflict alone. Parents may separate, but their responsibility to protect and support their children must remain.

4. Peer-to-peer bullying

The mechanisms currently in place to protect children from peer-to-peer bullying are profoundly broken. Countless students experience the isolating trauma of reporting bullying to school administrations, only to witness no action being taken.

I can speak strongly about this as a victim. I once attended a school where I also faced serious bullying. I tried to report what was happening, but nothing was done. That experience taught me how devastating institutional silence can be.

When a student reports bullying and receives no meaningful protection, they begin to believe that they have no voice and that their suffering does not matter. When these students finally seek professional help, they are too often met by school counsellors who adopt a judgemental posture rather than an empathetic one. Judgemental counselling invalidates a child’s pain, breaches their trust, and worsens the crisis, effectively closing the last available door to safety.

To address this crisis before more lives are lost, governments must treat youth mental health with the same financial and structural urgency as physical health. Schools, too, must establish effective systems for reporting bullying, protecting victims, and holding perpetrators accountable.

5. Social media, unrealistic expectations, and digital pressure

The digital revolution has transformed Uganda’s social fabric. While technology has created enormous opportunities for communication, education, creativity, and business, it has also exposed young people to cyberbullying and unrealistic lifestyle standards, fuelling unprecedented levels of loneliness, inadequacy, and severe drops in self-esteem.

This psychological crisis is driven by the toxicity of social media and a high rate of compulsive use, as young Ugandans increasingly struggle to live like wealthy socialites. Driven by the desire to achieve affluent, bourgeois lifestyles overnight, many fall into despair when reality fails to match the curated perfection seen online.

6. Digital pressure

In Uganda, this digital pressure has escalated into a public health emergency, manifested in rising reports of TikTokers and content creators involved in suicide cases. The real, unrelenting struggle to maintain numbers, views, and a large following drives vulnerable individuals into extreme mental distress.

This crisis is exacerbated by parental negligence. Many parents give children smartphones without guiding them on what they watch, whom they interact with, and how they should respond to harmful online content. This raises an important question for every parent: Do you know what your child is watching online?

Consequently, societal role models have shifted from accomplished professionals, such as lawyers, to internet socialites. Today, Ugandan children openly declare that they want to become like popular social media personalities and TikTokers, valuing viral fame over academic or professional merit.

Parents and society therefore have a responsibility to teach young people that their value is not determined by followers, likes, views, material possessions, or online recognition.

What must we do?

As I conclude, addressing this systemic crisis requires a coordinated response from both state authorities and the family unit. The government, as the body responsible for the welfare of its citizens, must strengthen mental health services for young people and invest in accessible support programmes. It must consider implementing stronger digital safety policies, age-verification regulations, and nationwide mental health support initiatives tailored to the realities of today’s digital generation.

The decriminalisation of attempted suicide in Uganda, as outlined in the Penal Code Act, should also remain part of the national conversation. Young people experiencing suicidal thoughts should be encouraged to seek help rather than fear punishment.

At the same time, parents must reclaim their role as primary mentors and sources of emotional support while taking time to understand what their children consume online. Schools should become safer spaces where students can report bullying, academic pressure, abuse, and mental health struggles without fear of humiliation.

Religious leaders, teachers, counsellors, health professionals, communities, and young people themselves all have a role to play. Mental health education should not begin only when someone is already in crisis. It should become part of how we educate and raise young people.

Most importantly, we must change the way we respond when someone says, “I am not okay.” We should not immediately judge them. We should not dismiss their pain. We should not tell them simply to pray harder, work harder, or be stronger. We should listen. We should take them seriously. We should connect them to appropriate support.

Suicide prevention is not the responsibility of one institution. It is a collective responsibility. We must choose compassion over condemnation, listening over judgment, and prevention over regret. Our young people are worth saving, and the time to act is now.

A version of this article was first published in the Daily Monitor on page 12 on 9 October 2026.

By Nyakecho Mary

Every year on June 16th, the continent comes together to celebrate the Day of the African Child, honouring the youth of Soweto who marched for their right to education in 1976. This year, the African Union has turned its spotlight toward an urgent fundamental right with the theme: “Ensuring Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) for Every Child in Africa.”

Across Uganda, schools celebrate new boreholes, latrines, and handwashing stations. But on Lolwe Island (also known as Dolwe) situated in the eastern part of Uganda, covering an area of 25 square kilometers out in the Namayingo District on Lake Victoria, this year’s theme collides with a harsh geographic and structural reality. For the children of Lolwe, water is everywhere, yet safe sanitation is a struggle, and secondary education is entirely non-existent. On this day, our young people face a dual crisis of infrastructure, asking a heavy question:

“How can we realize our right to health, clean sanitation, and safety when our education hits a dead end at Primary level?”

The lack of a single secondary school on the island shatters the rights of these brilliant children to both education and basic dignity, rendering the ambitious promises of national development frameworks a distant myth for island communities.

When water is everywhere, but opportunity is minimal

Lolwe Island is a place of breathtaking contrasts. It is one of Uganda’s most beautiful islands, characterized by massive granite rocks, boulders, and bustling landing sites alive with the fish trade. Approximately 15,000 people call this island home. According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) 2025 Baseline Education Census, the island has a robust population of about 2,500 school-going children, yet the number of secondary schools on the island is exactly zero.

When a child finishes Primary Seven (P.7) at institutions like Kadenge Primary School, their pathway to a secure future is immediately cut off. To continue education, these thousands of children must board the MV Sigulu or, more commonly, crowd into a wooden canoe to travel three to four hours across the unpredictable, open waters of Lake Victoria to mainland Namayingo or neighbouring districts.

This is where the transition from primary school intersects directly with this year’s WASH theme and Uganda’s supreme law. Under Article 30 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, education is a fundamental right for all citizens. Furthermore, the state is mandated under Objective XXI of the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy to take practical measures to ensure clean and safe water for all. On Lolwe, both of these mandates are systematically broken.

Moreover, by completely ignoring the secondary education deficit on the island, Uganda stands in direct violation of regional treaty obligations. Specifically, Article 11(3)(b) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) explicitly asks state parties to “encourage the development of secondary education in its different forms and to progressively make it free and accessible to all.” For the youth of Lolwe Island, secondary education is neither free nor accessible, but physically absent.

For the few families who scratch their pockets to send their children to the mainland, boarding schools are financially out of reach. Instead, they rent small, unsupervised rooms for their adolescent children near mainland day schools. In these settlements, adolescents, especially girls, are exposed to severe water and housing insecurities. Without parental guidance or safe, private sanitation facilities, managing menstrual hygiene becomes a nightmare, leaving them highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation in exchange for basic necessities like sanitary pads or clean water.

A crisis of social development & SRHR

When evaluated under the international human rights framework of AAAQ (Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Quality), Lolwe Island is experiencing a systemic drought. Without a physical secondary school building to anchor them, approximately 2,500 children are left behind without clean school toilets or safe water points. This triggers a dangerous chain of human rights violations that directly defy regional treaties like the ACRWC.

Beyond physical dangers, the total absence of secondary education inflicts severe, irreversible damage on the children’s social development. Adolescence is a critical developmental window for building emotional regulation, long-term goal setting, and critical thinking. When a child’s academic journey stops at age 13, their world shrinks. Without a structured school environment, they are deprived of positive peer socialization and mentorship that transforms teenagers into active civic participants.

Furthermore, without secondary education, girls face heightened risks of teenage pregnancy and early, forced marriages. By failing to provide a safe educational environment, the state falls short of its protective custody duties under Article 27 of the ACRWC which protects them from sexual abuse. Socially, these girls are stripped of their agency, transitioning instantly from children to isolated, and burdened young mothers before they have even processed their own childhood.

The NDP IV deficit

The structural neglect of Lolwe Island stands in stark, contradictory contrast to Uganda’s current national planning blueprints. The government is currently implementing its Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV, 2025/26-2029/30), which anchors the country’s transition toward Vision 2040 and aims for a 10-fold economic expansion.

A foundational pillar of the NDP IV is Human Capital Development, which explicitly targets increasing the average years of education and expanding access to Universal Secondary Education (USE) to cultivate a highly competitive, skilled workforce. The NDP IV explicitly recognizes that keeping teenagers, especially girls in school directly drives down demographic dependency ratios, reduces teenage pregnancies, and secures household wealth creation.

Furthermore, under the newly launched Uganda Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene National Adaptation Plan (WASH NAP 2026-2030), the Ministry of Water and Environment has explicitly recognized that resilient WASH infrastructure in schools is a primary determinant for the attendance and retention of adolescent girls.

By leaving Lolwe Island entirely blank on the secondary education map despite a baseline of 2,500 primary school-level learners, the government is defaulting on its own planning targets. Lolwe functions as a distinct sub-county. According to the long-standing Universal Post Primary Education and Training (UPPET) policy of 2007, every sub-county in Uganda must have at least one government grant-aided secondary school. On Lolwe, this policy remains a broken promise.

The indivisibility of rights

Human rights are indivisible: you cannot fulfill a child’s right to health and sanitation if you deny them the physical classroom where those rights are actualized and protected.

Civil society and local community efforts can only go so far when structural infrastructure is entirely missing. We cannot completely protect an adolescent from early vulnerabilities if their academic journey is put to a stop at the age of 13 or 14 simply because of their geographical location.

A call to action

The future of Lolwe Island is slowly brightening. With the arrival of a hybrid solar grid, local commerce is thriving and economic potential is awakening. However, for true transformation to take effect, our social sectors must catch up. It is time for Education and WASH to align with Uganda’s national aspirations under the NDP IV.

This Day of the African Child, we urge the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Water and Environment to turn their eyes to Lake Victoria and take immediate action. Establishing a government grant-aided secondary school on Lolwe Island is no longer just a developmental request, but an enforceable constitutional duty and a vital public health priority.

Let us ensure that the children of Lolwe can wash their hands in safety, develop their minds in dignity, and step into a secondary classroom right on their own island.

Let us not leave the African Child of Lolwe stranded at the shoreline.

The writer is a Project Officer at Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD).

– By Jacqueline Twemanye | Communications Coordinator | Center for Health, Human Rights and Development

As we commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2026, the global theme “Give To Gain” challenges us to rethink generosity not as charity, but as strategy, because investment in women is not subtraction; it is intentional multiplication. When women thrive, families stabilise, communities prosper, and nations grow. At the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), we understand “Give To Gain” as a call to invest deliberately in women’s health, rights, dignity, and agency. When we give women the legal protection, equitable health services, and social equity they deserve, the entire nation gains productivity, resilience, harmony, and justice.

This is a moment to measure whether the dividends from the promises we make to women and girls are visible in their daily lives. Are they safe when they seek care? Can they afford treatment? Are their rights and freedoms respected in health facilities, in homes, in workplaces, and under the law?

The Health Gap We Must Close

Uganda has made measurable progress in maternal health, with maternal mortality declining significantly in recent years. While the country’s maternal mortality ratio has declined to approximately 76 per 100,000 live births in 2024, national estimates still suggest that many women die from preventable causes such as postpartum haemorrhage, eclampsia, unsafe abortion, obstructed labour, and complications from fistula. Behind every statistic is a woman whose life could have been saved through timely care, adequate supplies, accountable systems, and prompt referrals.

Non-communicable diseases are increasingly shaping Uganda’s health burden. Cervical cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women, with projections indicating a sharp rise in incidence rates, expected to reach 66.1 per 100,000 women by 2030. Thousands of new cases are diagnosed each year, many detected late due to limited screening and awareness. Breast cancer cases are also increasing and are often diagnosed at advanced stages, when treatment is more complex and costly. These are not inevitable tragedies; they are preventable and treatable when detected early.

CEHURD notes that giving to women in this context means investing in prevention through HPV vaccination, routine screening, early detection, and affordable treatment. It means integrating cancer services into primary health care and ensuring that no woman must travel hundreds of kilometres to access life-saving services. This is why we have advocated for increased financing for non-communicable diseases and stronger implementation of vaccination programmes such as HPV vaccination for girls. A health system that prioritises women must invest in prevention, early diagnosis, and affordable treatment.

HIV, Inequality, and Structural Barriers

Women in Uganda continue to bear a disproportionate burden of HIV, at 7.2 percent compared to 4.3 percent among men. CEHURD’s work on HIV/AIDS indicates that young women and adolescent girls aged 15–24 remain significantly more likely to acquire HIV than their male peers. This is largely driven by structural inequalities, economic vulnerability, and gender-based violence.

While Uganda has made strides in expanding access to antiretroviral therapy, and national HIV prevalence stands at about 5.1 percent among adults, access is not uniform. Stigma, fear, criminalisation of vulnerable populations, and regressive laws continue to undermine prevention and treatment efforts. We cannot end HIV while ignoring inequality. CEHURD has worked alongside communities, civil society, and partners to advance legal and policy reforms that protect the rights of women living with HIV. Such efforts demonstrate that to “give” means dismantling legal and social barriers that limit women’s agency. It means challenging discriminatory laws and practices, promoting rights-based approaches to HIV services, and ensuring services are not only available but also accessible, confidential, acceptable, respectful, and responsive.

We continue to see stock-outs of essential medicines, underfunded health facilities, delayed referrals, and the persistent cost of accessing care, especially in rural districts. For adolescent girls, the risks are even greater and compounded by factors such as early marriage, teenage pregnancy, limited access to accurate sexual and reproductive health information, as well as fear, stigma, and discrimination in health facilities.

Health outcomes are inseparable from gender equality. When we give women autonomy and protection, we gain healthier communities and a stronger public health response.

From Law on Paper to Justice in Practice

Uganda has progressive constitutional guarantees on equality and non-discrimination, but gaps persist between the law and lived reality. Gender-based violence remains widespread, and its impact goes far beyond physical harm. It leaves deep psychological scars that often go unseen and untreated. Survivors frequently experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, substance misuse, and in severe cases, suicidal thoughts, Addressing gender-based violence, therefore, must include access to psychosocial support, trauma-informed care, and strong community systems that protect both the body and the mind.. Harmful norms and discriminatory practices continue to restrict women’s and girls’ decision-making power over their bodies and futures.

At CEHURD, our work bridges courtrooms, communities, and policy spaces. For over 15 years, we have advanced social justice in health by treating maternal health, HIV, and reproductive rights not merely as medical concerns, but as matters of accountability and constitutional obligation. Through strategic litigation, we have helped clarify state responsibility in preventable maternal deaths. We have strengthened community monitoring systems to track health service delivery. We have engaged Parliament and ministries on health financing and gender-responsive budgeting. We have amplified the voices of young people demanding access to accurate information and respectful care, and supported grassroots organisations.

Our work is rooted in the belief that health is both a medical and a human rights issue. Giving women justice yields institutional reform. We approach maternal health as a matter of rights and accountability, recognising that services must be accessible, not a privilege. Giving communities legal empowerment yields needed efficiencies. We have influenced structural reforms to address systemic failures that cost women their lives. Giving voice to survivors yields systemic change. We have supported communities to demand better-equipped facilities, timely emergency obstetric care, and improved health financing.

Turning “Give to Gain” into Action for Women’s Health

In line with the theme of giving to gain, CEHURD has continually focused on improving the physical and mental health of women and girls in Uganda through tested legal, community empowerment, and research-driven approaches. Through strategic litigation, we have pioneered the use of the law to hold the state accountable for maternal and perinatal deaths. Our landmark cases, such as Constitutional Petition No. 16, established that the government’s failure to provide basic maternal health kits violates the rights to health and life.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has also urged all states to renew their political commitment to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and morbidity at all levels, strengthen efforts to address multiple and intersecting inequalities, and allocate domestic resources to health systems and the provision of necessary information and services related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls.

We provide a Safe Listening Space and legal aid to survivors of gender-based violence, recognising that social justice in health goes beyond biological factors. It embraces a broader scope of determinants, including chronic stressors, structural inequities, resource constraints, policy gaps, and environmental hazards.

Through advocacy for sexual and reproductive health and rights, and community-led projects supported by small grants to grassroots organisations, we are empowering women to claim their rights. We advocate for age-appropriate health education and life skills, especially among adolescents, recognising that when a woman or girl has control over her reproductive life, she can participate fully in the economy. In districts such as Lira, Gulu, Arua, Yumbe, Oyam, Maracha, and Koboko, we have strengthened community systems to respond to HIV and human rights concerns. By training local male champions and community paralegals, we are dismantling myths that prevent women from accessing HIV care. We also equip women and girls with the knowledge and skills to resist unsafe sex and negotiate safer sex.

It is evident that when we give communities the tools to monitor maternal health services, we gain transparency. When we give adolescent girls accurate sexual and reproductive health information, we gain informed choices. When we give survivors legal and psychosocial support, we gain restored dignity. When we give evidence to policymakers, we gain better laws and stronger systems. Investment in women’s health is not expenditure; it is the development of human capital that truly turns giving into gain.

Our Call to Action

To “Give” so that Uganda may “Gain,” we call upon:

Development partners, civil society, and the private sector to promote equitable health and invest in sustainable health infrastructure, research, and innovation to reach the most vulnerable.

Government to increase and efficiently allocate health financing, prioritise maternal and reproductive health, strengthen cancer prevention and treatment services, and ensure a consistent supply of essential medicines.

Parliament to exercise robust oversight so that laws and budgets reflect the lived realities of women and girls, alongside effective accountability mechanisms.

Health professionals to uphold dignity, confidentiality, prior informed consent, and non-discrimination in every interaction.

Communities and local leaders to reject violence and stigma, and challenge harmful norms that limit women’s autonomy.

In Conclusion

This International Women’s Day reminds us of a simple truth: a country cannot thrive when its women are left behind. Health is not a privilege but a constitutional right. The measure of our commitment will not be in the speeches delivered today, but in the policies funded, the systems strengthened, and the lives saved in the years ahead. The health of a woman is the health of a nation. As we celebrate the achievements of women this year, let us give resources, protection, opportunity, respect, and autonomy so that Uganda may gain equity, productivity, and justice.

This article was first published in the Daily Monitor on 9th March 2026.