I decide to leave the restaurant and drive immediately to this place, led by another local journalist who was sharing dinner with us and who offered to show me the way. After almost 40 minutes we leave the main road and drive through the bush, eventually reaching the house of a broken family that is mourning the loss of Margaret Babirye Nankya**, who was only 10 years old.
I’m emotionally torn, uncomfortable. I feel like I’m intruding in someone else’s pain, a lacerating pain. After presenting my condolences to the family I try my best to explain why I’m there. The mother of the girl looks at me initially without saying a single word; a look I will never forget. Her eyes were lost in the emptiness of a pain that goes beyond what a human being can stand. She has no more tears, no more words, no strength left. She sits still, on a couch with her younger son, in tears. The chief of the village is also in the house, with another elder and some women.
I explain to the chief of the community that I’m a journalist that I’m trying to expose the practice of child sacrifice. It’s hard, in my mind and my words, to make them understand the logic that led me there, late at night. We speak different languages, belong to different cultures, but we have the same human understanding; we both know this practice must be fought and exposed. I try not to speak as a journalist but simply as a human being, naked in front of something that has no explanation. The family appears to understand -- so I push it a little further and, with their permission, I show them some pictures I took from similar cases I’ve been following through the past month. Everyone gathers around the computer, while I briefly explain the cases I have documented. I’m surprised and moved when the mother interrupts my conversation I’m having with the elder chief. “Thanks for being here” – she says, with a thin voice coming out from the deepness of an unimaginable sorrow. “Thanks to you, for allowing me here” - I answer. ***
At this point I feel the barriers have someway gone and I explain it is part of my job to gather what a journalist would call “visual evidences”. Of the many things I have done in my life, this was among the hardest. Being there, out of the blue, in the darkness of this creepy night asking a broken-hearted mother to show me the mutilated corpse of her daughter, is one thing that someway changed my perspective on life. But that is another story.
The mother and the elder chief talk, I don’t understand what they say, but then they consent to show me the body. I explain to them that this evidence will be crucial in several ways; I try to imagine the fear and pain Babirye has experienced while a monster ironically called a “healer” was killing her; I imagine her 10 year-old, wide-open eyes crying and staring at the machete that took her life away. And I firmly believe, more than ever since I’m in Uganda, that this horrible death can be turned into something that will help prevent other crimes like this .
We move out of the house. The night is silent and still. Three people start digging in the garden by the house, where the family had buried Babirye just a few hours before. With the utmost respect, and in silence, I follow the whole family while they move the body by the house. No one says a word but then the local chief approaches the corpse and explains in gruesome detail what happened to the girl. Words weren’t really necessary; the mutilations themselves speak loud. I take some pictures, trying to use the camera as a filter, something that I hope will protect me from this horrendous reality. It was like taking the express elevator to hell, breathing the smell of a dead, innocent child who was simply guilty of being unable to protect herself from madness.
After a few minutes Babirye is reburied and I go back in the house, following the mother. Her young son walks with her, hand in hand. His father had left their home, years ago. I thank the mother for allowing me to do my job, and she asks me if there’s anything I can do for her. So I dare, and I ask her if she would allow me to record a video interview. She consents, and while hugging her child, she says: “He’s the one who know every details, because he was around when this happened”. I first hesitate, but then I start to record. I will never forget the courage of these people, their dignity and strength. I made them a promise: The death of Babirye won’t be in vain. I assure them I’ll do everything I can to help them get justice, in a place where justice is a privilege for few and often depends on the money available. The mother tells me they don’t trust the court. They know of similar cases that eventually ended up with no conviction and no guilty. I think about the case of Mukisa, and of all the other cases I have seen, and I can’t blame her.
Once I’m done with the interview we talk for a while more, then I hug the mother and greet the elders and women. When I’m about to leave the house, the chief of the community ask me for a “contribution”. I’m a bit surprised, and I ask what this would be for. The mother says they have no money to hire a lawyer; she said there is a suspect but she’s afraid he will bribe the local police and they will let him go. My idea was at first to put the family in touch with RACHO, the NGO I’m working with, as I know they’re developing a program that will offer medical and legal assistance to the families of the victims. But I also know that RACHO is still a small organization, and despite the plans and their commitment, they have no funds. So I give the mother some money, making sure this amount will be enough to hire a lawyer. She’s a proud woman, and despite the amount being very modest, she says it’s enough. I hug her again, and at this point she grabs my hand, and say: “Please, don’t let us down”.
I drive back to Kampala, in total silence, with the image of Babirye in my eyes. I let the air from the window to ease my mind, trying to find comfort.
The next day, my phone rings. It’s Moses Binoga, Chief of the Police Department’s Anti-Human Sacrifice and Organ Trafficking section. He’s investigating Babirye’s case. Moses is a pragmatic, straightforward person; we have been working on other cases for the past month, sharing and exchanging information and we still have one month ahead. When I first visited him, at his office, he was uncomfortable of having journalists around, especially from western countries. He’s a proud Ugandan and he doesn’t want the world to think his country is the place where people murder children. To some extent, I understand his concern, but I’m glad to see he’s fair. In our conversations he has never tried to deny that child sacrifice is happening in Uganda.
On the phone, Moses tells me about Babirye and he invites me to join him in the field to follow the investigation. To his surprise, I answer that I already know about this case. We meet for dinner later this same night, on his return from Katugwe. We discuss the case and then he says: “I know you have been there last night, to photograph the corpse.”
In our collaboration over the past month I had never forgotten that Binoga represents a government institution -- and that some people in that government wouldn’t be happy with the kind of story I was covering. I have always had some concern he could have sent someone to arrest me or to seize my equipment, and for this reason I always made sure to leave a back-up of my work in safe hands. That night, I understood we were really partnering. If he wanted to make my life difficult, this would have been the perfect chance. Instead, he simply told me I should have informed him, and that what I did wasn’t legal.
But Moses is a committed officer and he knows the reasons that pushed me to visit a family in mourning in the middle of the night are good reasons. He understands the meaning and value of the word “evidence;” he deals with that himself, on a daily basis. I remember that once I told him: “Cops and journalists somehow are the same: the only difference is that journalists have no guns, while cops take terrible pictures”. He agreed. After sharing some thoughts, Moses drives back home, and so I do. A few days later we meet in his office again, to organize a trip to Gulu, in the north of the country; I had some clues leading to a suspected organ trafficker so I asked him to join me. Unfortunately, I was on a false track, so in that case nothing happened.
Two days before I left Uganda, I learned of a break in Babirye’s case. Three suspects, arrested by Moses Binoga, are currently under investigation. Two of them were a man and his wife, people Babirye’s mother had asked to look after her child; the third was a “traditional healer.” The trio had acted smartly: they buried the corpse in the middle of the forest, far from the village, and in order to make the search more difficult they dug different holes. The whole village where Babirye lived was involved in the search, including the child’s 9 year-old brother.
A few days ago I received an email from Moses; among other things, he explained me that “the situation has continued to improve. What we want is to maintain vigilance of public sensitization and offering psychological counseling and some medical assistance to the survival victims and families of those who lost dear ones”.
Despite all the difficulties and limits that Binoga faces on a daily basis, he’s been able to send a strong message – that justice will be pursued, and perpetrators will be brought to account.
Update 04/21/10: The image of Margaret Babirye Nankya was removed from this post. Read the explanatory post from Pulitzer Center Executive Director, Jon Sawyer
Update 04/25/10: We have updated the post to reflect the spelling of Babirye's full name according to the spelling used by Ugandan newspapers.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Please read this blog. A well researched piece of journalism.
http://www.adevelopingstory.org/2010/pulitzer-center-crisis-in-ethics
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Vernashi's photo of the exhumed body is the most troubling aspects of what is, in its totality, a deeply flawed project.
A similar photo of a white American or European child would never be published, not by the Pulitzer Center or any other major media outlet in the West.
But somehow it's permissible, when the subject is black.
The project's embrace of cultural racism doesn't stop there.
The entire photographic series (which you can see, here: http://www.photoshelter.com/c/marco_vernaschi/gallery/CHILD-SACRIFICE-Uganda/G0000x1HawSRNvQo/ ) owes much of its power to its embrace of deeply ingrained stereotypes about strange, devilish, barbaric rites being performed in darkest Africa.
Yes, the photos are powerful, masterfully made. But by encouraging viewers to see this a part of a primitive, mysterious, and ultimately unknowable Africa, the photos promote a horrified indifference, not action. In doing so they undermine Vernashi’s stated aim of ending child mutilation.
Vernashi made a series of indefensible choices here -- both moral and aesthetic.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
If Marco Vernaschi´s ethical lines on how to document a murder turn to be a trend, Bosnia´s ground, will soon look like the moon, with flicker photographers violating graves after "visual evidences" of suffering.
http://untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/2010/04/uganda-babirye-the-girl-from-katugwe.html
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
This is very sad story, i have read the story and seen the pictures too,its good that such eveil acts are exposed. thanks for the good work.
Tim Tandhi.
south Africa
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
It's amazing that this issue has been raised, such a sad story to read, didn't know anything about Uganda and such problems, well done keep up the good work!
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Mr Vernaschi's photos have shocked me to the core of my being. The way the pictures capture the raw emotion of the children is absolutely harrowing. It feels as though you are living this nightmare with them. I commend Mr Vernaschi on his efforts to highlight this problem to the wider world. It is such a saddening thought that murders such as that of the girl pictured above, happen almost daily. Keep doing your great work Mr Vernaschi, your photos are handled with sensitivity and talent, and illuminate the reality of this shocking issue.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Any photographer is able to desecrate a grave?
Apparently The Pulitzer Center feels themselves to be above the law, along with their associated photographers.
Irrespective of the tragic story, their ethics are criminal.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Good photographic work from uganda. keep it up marco and thanks to the pulitzer centre for suporting you in this work. we are really intrested in knowing more of what is happening in Africa.
Good work guys.
sylvester grigory.
France.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
What an amazing story from uganda marco? Thanx man.
John micheal
USA.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Marco, I think that it was not necessary to exhume the girl's body to tell your story. The other pictures you took are powerfull and chilling enough, and the story is indeed of utmost importance to be told. But you could for example have found a way to show the 'terrible pictures' of the police instead. The problem now is: how far did you go in obtaining the other pictures from your story? Your credibility has taken a blow. You were carried away...
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
I think Marco Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center has a big ethical problem.
I cannot understand the methods of Marco Vernaschi - there seems to be no limits for him. Whatever lame excuses he uses for the story's importance. If you put money in front of poor people in a village in Africa they will take the money. And do what you ask them to do. It's just a question of the amount. Then you can claim it is for hiring a lawyer - so you feel better. But you still pay for getting your picture.
I have written a blog on the trend in modern photojournalism. Read it - also you people at the Pulitzer Center.
http://www.maydaypress.com/blog/page9.html
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Some journo actually came down here and exhumed a child's body to take pictures, and some people here have been blinded by his rhetoric to 'commend' his work? Give me a break! This project his the lowest point of any ethics in one's practice! I'm a Ugandan journalist, and this is the first time I've heard a journalist did such a thing! Only the police, with the consent of the victim's family, are sometimes allowed to exhume a body if sufficient investigations had not been carried out prior to the burial, if it's a murder. Not journalists tempting a vulnerable family with cash to subject them to this horrendous humiliation! This wasn't heroic Marco; this was sheer failure in your ethics, and your mind has been shrouded by the Pulitzer center!
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
The story is supposed to be about a family's loss and this horrific crime....not about what your bloody feelings! I don't care what you thought...you're a 3 month journalist/tourist and not someone who's living there and lost a child. Many rural Africans still see white men as 'higher' and therefore will always try to please...you must have seen that at every restaurant and hotel you stayed at. The mother could have the same mindset and thought that since you were asking her to dig the child up then it must be the right thing to do.
Since you appear so close to the police investigator why didn't you call him or accompany him to the scene before you (possibly) destroyed or damaged evidence? Any other country and you'd be in jail for that.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Please see Marco Vernaschi's statement regarding this matter, which includes a new statement from the Pulitzer Center and links to video interviews with the mother of Margaret Babirye Nankya and Richard Omongole, a Ugandan lawyer and former country director for Amnesty International:
http://untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/2010/04/uganda-response-to-critics.html
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
It doesn't read that way.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
I also like to invite everyone here to pay attention in another short part of Mr. Vernaschi´s article.
"so I push it a little further and, with their permission, I show them some pictures I took from similar cases I’ve been following through the past month."
If you again visit Mr. Vernaschi´s web page you will not find any picture showing a similar case. At least not anymore. I like to ask Mr. Vernaschi why he deleted the picture MRV_Aedit (14).jpeg. This picture was documenting a second murder. Please Mr. Vernaschi, tell us the story behind this picture as well.
I also like to make a second observation:
Regarding Mr. Vernaschi´s web page, Child Sacrifice is not a rampant phenomenon anymore as he claimed so loudly before. How many more things does Mr. Vernaschi has to correct about this project?
The Pulitzer Center and it´s administration knows how many more. They just don´t want to come out with it.
After one week on the net, and a few excuses the Pulitzer Center Administration is only waiting everyone to "move on". Please Mr. Sawyer. Help us to move on exposing everything that you know about this case.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Andre you are sort of giving a blow by blow description, 1-14, were you there at the time?
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
No Imants. I was there after. And this is just an invitation for you to think about and investigate, not to buy it from me.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Helle, She was not from Katugwe, she was killed in Katugwe where she used to stay. She was from Matugga and she is buried there.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
André Liohn.
I would like to invite my fellow colleagues photographers and producers to reflect about one point of Marco´s article.
"After a few minutes Babirye is reburied and I go back in the house, following the mother".
Marco has produced not only the pictures, he is also producing a documentary film with a friend named Sebastiano Vitale.
I suppose many here are professional photographers, video photographers or producers so I imagine that you can agree with me that you need more than "a few" minutes to photograph and to film one single case.
I also like to remember that in Uganda the bodies are buried naked in withe bed sheets and not in very short (is suppose) red dresses. The kind of dress that the little girl is using is hardly seen in Uganda among young girls. I also like to invite you to see the picture once again and observe how "clean" the body is.
Marco and Sebastiano used long time to convince the family, to dig the body (here I would like to invite Marco to say who are the persons who dug the body)to clean the body, to dress the body and to move the body away from the grave so they could have it in a more "natural" environment. If Marco used just "a few minutes" as he says, why is the body not in the coffin?
I like to remind my colleagues that this picture is heavily staged and I like you all to try to imagine everything that "you" would need to do in order to stage such a picture.
1 Convince the family
2 Dig the body
3 take the body from the coffin
4 move the body away from the grave and the coffin
5 clean the body
6 dress the body
7 prepare the equipment
8 photograph
9 film
10 bring the body back
11 undress the body (if they did it)
12 cover the body with the sheets
13 put the body back to the coffin
14 cover the body with earth
How many people would you need to do it and how long time would you need to do it? And let´s give Marco a credit. How many people and how long time would you need to do it with "respect" as Marco claims he did.
I also like to invite you to reflect about another thing. If Marco was there only with the local journalist as he says, but what we know is not true as he had at least one more person with him. (Sebastiano Vitale) how could Mr. Binoga find it so early in the morning that Marco was there? Matugga is about one hour from Kampala. Who told Mr. Binoga about the facts?
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Did Marco Vernaschi also get the little girls name wrong? And the location? Just interesting that the Ugandan newspaper New Vision calls her Margaret Babirye Nankya and does not mention a village called Katugwe. They clearly say the girl was buried in Kavunza in Matugga. But they might be wrong?
See at the bottom of this story: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/708097
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
You raise some good points Charles.
But I wonder if your daughter had died and the journalist put up pictures saying she was raped, her heart was cut out and her brain removed, and even got your daughters name wrong, how would you feel about that?
Some years ago I made a documentary about families whose children were murdered. Time after time they all told me one of the things that upset them the most is way the press distort things.
I also think the following point you make is not true:
'If Mr. Vernaschi had not bothered to leave Kampala, this young girl would be just another body in the ground, unknown, ignored and almost certainly without any form of justice.'
The case was being investigated by the police. By Vernaschi's own account 'Three suspects, arrested by Moses Binoga, are currently under investigation.'
Thats the same Moses Binoga who is quoted as saying:
'It was very wrong to indicate that justice in Uganda is for those with money. The money he gave the mother was actually to influence her to allow for the illegal exhumation of the body but not for a defence lawyer over a crimial case because according to our juducial system, the suspects in such cases are accused by the State and not by the relatives of the victim ... I wish to tell you that the situation of human sacrifice in Uganda has continued to reduce and very soon those opportunists may have nothing to lie about.'
More here http://vigilantejournalist.com/blog/archives/1615
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
How can a whole Pulitzer center be behind this barbaric exploitation of emotions of a family after such tragedy. your taking down these pictures is a good move but it should teach you a lesson that africa is watching, we will nolonger seat behind as western journalists and press organisations go to extremes in trying to define the problems we are facing.
Very often I see stories about serial killers in the US and they are not accompanied by the harrasment of famillies to obtain information and pictures that doesn't change anything. I have never seen any horrible images of the dead in the western media unless they are black people.
I am a Ugandan journalist and am really perturbed by the crime but doing what you did is sensationalism and exploitative journalism and it's name seeking and wanting to portray yourself as a hero who will show the 'whole'picture which is by the way now that well captured.
The story of human sacrifice cannot be changed by you going to a village and taking advantage of a family.
I am ashamed on your behalf, Pulitzer would never have supported such kind of journalism.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
I take issue with those who argue that these images were published because the subject was "African" or "black", or who argue that images of a white murdered child would not be published by any media organization (They would not be, but perhaps they should?).
I could go write an essay on this point, but I'll spare you all the bother and just say that anyone believes that hope of justice in Africa (or many other parts of the world) is some how available as it is in the U.S. or Europe, needs to go and see how the millions of normal people live. Don't event start me on the universality of "journalism ethics". It's an ideal guys, and even the best of us don't live up to it.
If I was a Ugandan and my daughter was brutally murdered (for sacrifice, or not), and some white guy showed up who I thought might have a chance in hell in helping the situation, I would show them the body and let them photograph it. I'm sorry but I think a lot of parents would do the same. (Especially if they were as powerless and unrepresented as most ordinary Ugandans.)
If Mr. Vernaschi had not bothered to leave Kampala, this young girl would be just another body in the ground, unknown, ignored and almost certainly without any form of justice.
Mr. Vernaschi should certainly have checked the facts of the case more carefully, but you should all understand that covering the issue of witch craft in Africa (as Vernaschi points out) is not not some cowardly excuse to repaint Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", but a valuable, revealing and important attempt to reveal the socio-economic relationships that continue to encourage brutality.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
Anne Holmes spoke to Pulitzer Center yesterday. They knew what she would write and yet they backed this project anyway.
http://vigilantejournalist.com/blog/archives/1615
'Mr. Vernaschi’s inability to get his facts straight and the horrifying manner in which he made this photograph led me to one clear conclusion: that the report on Babirye was deeply flawed, unethical, and I could not be seen as supporting such irresponsible journalism.'
So its not just the photos but the facts surrounding the case that are now being questioned.
What else has to come out before Pulitzer come to their senses.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
i think it is too bad. before being journalists we are human beings. i have read about it this morning in the pulitzer center website. and i couldn't believe it.
when i started in this career someone taught me that JOURNALISM IS AN EXERCISE OF HUMBLENESS. or it should be. none cares about what we think or feel and instead we should just give voice... See More ... See Moreto people in our stories: they are the ones who have to tell them through us. we are just vehicles and the means are never justified by any end, in my opinion.
there are many many many journalists –in that word i include photographers, of course– who are unable to accept reality and our work consists in telling about it. if you get to a place and what you wished to photograph is gone... that's it. that's life and that's our job. we should try to find the way to tell what we wanted to in a different way, with other resources. but we do not have the moral authority to make things happen just because we want to see them and to report. that's something very perverse. and not very professional.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
As a Ugandan, I'm very ashamed and saddened by this outright abuse of the hospitality of a family, and the exploitation of the memory and dignity of their deceased daughter.
Put yourself in the place of the family, and run through the gamut of emotions as some unauthorised stranger asks you to exhume your sister. Would that be acceptable in your country?
What you did is also illegal. Here in Uganda, disturbing the peace of the dead is a criminal act.
I'll not be surprised that you are part of the legions of marauding career climbers, who come to exploit the suffering of Africans in order to make a name at home.
re: Uganda: Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe
***Update 04/21/10: The image of Babirye Mergret was removed from this post. Read the explanatory post from Pulitzer Center Executive Director, Jon Sawyer
http://untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/2010/04/questions-on-uganda-child-sacrifice.html