Uganda: US couple charged over torture of foster son

Prosecutors in Uganda charged a US couple with "aggravated torture" on Tuesday over the treatment of their 10-year-old foster son.

The pair, both 32, were fostering the boy who attends a school for children with special needs in the capital Kampala. They had been taking care of the boy since 2020 and were arrested on Friday after a neighbor sounded the alarm about his treatment.

Police raided the home, where they found that the child was forced to constantly squat in an "awkward position," fed only cold food, and forced to sleep on a "wooden platform, with a mattress or bedding," according to a statement.

The couple are now in a maximum-security prison in the capital.

According to the authorities, they arrived in the country in 2017 and worked with a US-based non-profit in the town of Jinja before moving to an upscale Kampala suburb to work at a startup. 

They were fostering two other children at the time of their arrest.

As in several other countries in the global south, dubious international adoptions have come under the spotlight in Uganda in recent years. In 2020, the US government-imposed sanctions on a US-based adoption agency in Uganda accused of placing infants in new homes despite not actually being orphaned.

es/dj (AP, Reuters)