"Oyam Women Stranded With Babies Fathered By Chinese"

Several women in Oyam District are struggling to raise children sired by Chinese nationals after the fathers abandoned them. The Chinese nationals, who fathered the children, are employees of Sinohydro Construction Company that is constructing Karuma hydropower dam...Ms Jacqueline Adero, 20...is one of the women struggling to raise the children. Adero says a Chinese national identified only as Yahang, fathered her one-and-a half-year-old daughter. She recounts that in 2015, she went to Karuma to look for a menial job but ended up in a relationship with Yahang who promised to marry her and take her to China. Ms Adero...soon...realised that her boyfriend was returning to china without her. Five months pregnant and unable to work anymore, Ms Adero returned to her village in frustration. "I couldn't believe he was returning to China for good yet I carried his five-month pregnancy at the time and I just returned home in disappointment to manage my pregnancy, broke as I was," she narrates...Mr Alfred Kolo, Adero's father, says Sinohydro Company should intervene and link them with their granddaughter's father. "I am just a peasant and unable to raise all that it takes to bring up this child. It is very expensive to treat her medically and feed her considering the diet she requires. This is why her real father has to come in and support," he adds.

The chief of Mwa Otiratok clan in Kamdini Sub-county, Mr Patrick Okello, says they will file a formal complaint with Sinohydro management. "We have a law in our culture which demands that you either marry that girl or compensate for damages and time lost because of the pregnancy and it is on this basis that we will demand the company to produce these workers who have abandoned our daughters with their children," Mr Okello says. However, Dr Richard Nam, the Lango Cultural foundation prime minister, says they are planning to negotiate with the management of Sinohydro Construction company on how the women can be supported. "It is our culture that once you impregnate our daughter and decline to marry her, you pay compensation for damages and upkeep of your offspring. This is what we want to make clear to them when we engage them in negotiations," Dr Nam says.