Online Reporter
Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
A 23-year old man living with HIV has been jailed for 10 years after impregnating a 16-year-old girl he was living with as his wife.
However, the 16-year-old girl did not contract HIV. She tested negative despite having a child with her HIV positive husband.
Their love story took a tragic turn when the schoolgirl stopped attending classes and ran away to live with her lover.
Their relationship, though consensual, was illegal under the law because the girl was a child. The union led to a child and a court battle.
Justice Benjamin Chikowero, presiding over the case, painted a vivid picture of the ordeal.
“The offender is young, only 23, and the age gap with the complainant is just seven years. They were living as husband and wife, but the law is clear: being intimate with a child is a serious crime,” he said.
The judge said no special circumstances could save the man from prison.
“Despite the mitigating factors, there are no special circumstances to spare him from the mandatory minimum sentence.”
The court heard how the girl’s education was cut short, her future altered forever by the pregnancy and child marriage. The danger the man posed by exposing her to HIV weighed heavily on the court’s decision.
Balancing the scales, Justice Chikowero said, “He pleaded guilty, he is a first offender, and his youth and health condition deserve mercy. But the law demands a firm hand.”
The man was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a sentence the judge described as “lengthy but necessary.”
