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Among the most sensitive family disputes Moses Kutoi mediates are those in which troubled men question why some of their children are not like them.
For a Ugandan clan leader familiar with the wisdom of his ancestors, this matter is taboo, never to be discussed with others. Yet Kutoi feels compelled to intervene in the hopes of saving marriages that sometimes turn violent and to the brink of collapse.
The clan leader recently told a disbelieving man he was helping, “Even I don’t look like my father.”
Fatherhood has become a major test of faith in this former African as a country dna test It has become more widely available, inspired in part by published reports of well-known Ugandans who eventually discovered that they were not the biological fathers of some of their children.
The issue has become so heated that clerics and traditional leaders now urge a return to tolerance and the kind of African teachings that village elders like Kutoi say they stand for.
At last year’s Christmas Day service, English The Archbishop of Uganda, Stephen Kazimba, cited the virgin birth of Jesus – the basis of the Christian faith – in a sermon aimed at discouraging dna Trial among believers.
“You take the DNA and you’ll find out that only two of the four children are yours,” he warned. “So just take care of the children as they are, just like Joseph did.”
Paternity disputes are on the rise
The Ministry of Internal Affairs runs a government-accredited laboratory that conducts court-ordered tests. It says the number of men seeking voluntary DNA testing has increased recently, with the results often being “heartbreaking”.
“About 95% people are coming dna test There are men, but more than 98% of the results show that these men are not the biological fathers,” Internal Affairs Ministry spokesman Simon Peter Mundayi told reporters in July.
“His advice to men was to not ask for DNA proof of paternity unless your heart is strong,” he said.
DNA testing centers have sprung up throughout Uganda, with aggressive advertising by clinical laboratories on radio and in public places. Advertisements offering DNA testing facilities have been plastered on the rear windows of some passenger taxis in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
In Nabumaali, a small town where Kutoi is mayor, most families cannot afford the DNA testing fee, which exceeds $200 at the only private laboratory equipped to do such work in the nearby town of Mbale.
By the time couples who seek Kutoi’s help come to them, they can barely tolerate each other. He tries to ease the tension by making self-deprecating jokes and sharing his own experience with the taboo subject. Kutoi likes to point out that although he does not resemble his father, he was still chosen as the family’s successor, allowing him to become a clan leader among the Bagisu people.
In the past, if a man spoke publicly about paternity concerns, community elders would visit him. He could be punished, Kutoi said, including being forced to pay a fine.
Kutoi said, “You must not say that I suspect that this child is not mine.” He said being drunk is no excuse for such statements.
Disputes involving property and divorce proceedings
Many paternity disputes in Uganda these days revolve around the distribution of property after the death of the head of the family, but also during divorce proceedings when spousal support is disputed.
In the most prominent recent case, court-ordered DNA testing revealed that a wealthy academic in Kampala was not the father of any of the three children. That case has been widely covered by the local press, highlighting paternity as an issue affecting a wide range of families.
The Rev Robert Wantsala, pastor of a small Anglican parish in the Eastern District of Mbale, spoke about a series of paternity disagreements he has faced. He recalled a woman who got a DNA test done before naming her late husband’s son as the beneficiary of his estate, two men who were fighting over their child and a man who told his elder son he wanted a DNA test for not being treated like a family member.
“The man told his son, ‘This character is not in my family,'” Vantasala said, recalling an incident in 2023.
The son responded forcefully and won the approval of his community by telling his father that he would “agree to the trial on the condition that you invite my (dead) mother.”
Vantasala echoed Anglican Primate Kazimba’s advice, saying he always tells people who doubt to leave the matter to God.
“Whenever they come, in whatever way they come, kids are kids,” he said. “The child who is born in the house is your child. Even in African tradition it is like that.”
People who want a DNA test without thinking about the consequences are wasting their time, Kutoi said.
Speaking about African traditional society, he said, “For us, they knew the child was yours.”
The Kutoi said that rejecting children was unheard of, although some were known to take steps such as offering a disputed son a land inheritance far from the ancestral compound in which an heir would be established.
Faith leaders counsel families
Other religious leaders have held counseling sessions.
Pastor Andrew Mutengu of Word of Faith Ministries in Mbale said paternity is a recurring theme in many of the disputes he mediates between his 800 congregation members.
Last month he helped the wife of a wealthy businessman whose young daughter had been claimed by a former lover, a local barber. When the woman confessed that she had been unfaithful, Mutengu called the barber, who agreed to stop publicizing her claim in the interests of the child.
“He goes around bragging that ‘I’m the father,’” she said of Barber. “It was really causing problems because this woman is in the house with another man who is actually the known husband.”
Mutengu said he believed more men in his community would seek DNA testing if it were cheaper, regardless of appeals from faith leaders.
Even Kutoi became suspicious when his 29-year-old son crossed the compound of their house in Nabumali on a recent afternoon. The son is fair skinned and taller than his father, who used the opportunity to tell a joke.
He said, “You saw this tall boy. He’s my son.” “When you saw him, did he look like me?”
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Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.