Parliament has passed the long awaited protection and Prohibition of Human Sacrifice bill 2020, instituting a death penalty to the perpetrators.
The bill once assented to by the President will see anyone who facilitates or finances an act of human sacrifice liable to the death penalty.
The Parliamentary sitting chaired by Speaker Rebecca Kadaga passed and deleted some of the clauses in the Protection and Prohibition of Human Sacrifice bill 2020.
To the Legislators the vice of human sacrifice is a primitive cultural belief where perpetrators should be tried before the Court martial.
The bill that has been passed will see all those engaged in human sacrifice or facilitated the act financially or physically will be liable to a death penalty.
According to the new law, anyone who;
- Spreads belief in human sacrifice for financial reward or gain;
- Professes to practice human sacrifice;
- Encourages or advises any person to use human body parts in any ritual;
- Encourages or advises any person to use human body parts in any treatment or other form of healing;
- Encourages or advises a person to sacrifice a human being, or
- Encourages or advises another person to do any act which is prohibited under this act,
Will have committed a crime.
The bill also provides Non-government organizations may complement government in providing pyscho-social support to survivors of human sacrifice.
Owners of companies involved in the exportation of people but with a hidden agenda of practicing human sacrifice abroad, will also have committed an offense and the punishment is life imprisonment for perpetrators.
However, the state Minister for Planning David Bahati told Parliament that Cabinet will soon table to regulate donation of human organs to patients. This was after Lwemiyaga county Legislator Theodore Ssekikubo questioned some of the clauses relating to the donation of body organs to a patient.
Whereas incidents of human sacrifice have been increasing, the law relating to this
subject matter had not caught up with the evolving nature of the practice.
In its report to Parliament, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee noted that the offense of Human sacrifice is not punished in its own right but instead it is catered for under the Penal Code Act Cap 120 as the offense of murder and in the offense of trafficking in persons under the Prevention of Trafficking in persons Act, 2019.
