Karamoja, in Uganda’s dry northeast, faces severe water scarcity. Finding safe water is a daily struggle for families who rely on seasonal ponds and distant boreholes.
When water runs short, daily life contracts to basic survival: longer walks, missed school, and empty homes. Traffickers notice and exploit these vulnerabilities through promises of urban employment or marriage.
Long droughts, climate pressure, land degradation, and broken water points stack up. Women and children carry the heaviest load, walking long distances before dawn and after dusk.
At crowded water points, young girls face harassment. Recent studies trace movement from Karamoja to cities in Uganda and Kenya during hard seasons, raising risks of forced labor and servitude.
Schools and clinics suffer without water: girls drop out when sanitation fails, and clinics struggle with hygiene, compounding vulnerability across rural communities.
Mwagale Foundation advocates for clean water infrastructure, community boreholes, and anti-trafficking school clubs to build climate resilience and protect Karamoja's children.