More and more Ugandan men seek DNA paternity tests, often with heartbreaking results

NABUMALI, Uganda (AP) – Among the most sensitive family disputes Moses Kutoi mediates are those involving upset men questioning why some of their children don’t resemble them.

For the Ugandan clan leader attuned to the wisdom of his ancestors, the matter is taboo, never to be discussed with others. Yet Kutoi feels compelled to intervene in the hope of saving marriages that sometimes turn violent and are on the verge of breaking.

“Even me, I don’t resemble my father,” the clan leader recently told one disbelieving man he was helping.

Paternity has become a key test of faith in this east African country as DNA testing becomes more widely available, fueled in part by published reports of well-known Ugandans who eventually discovered they were not the biological fathers of some of their children.

The matter has become so heated that clerics and traditional leaders now urge tolerance and a return to the kind of African teachings that village elders like Kutoi say they stand for.

At last year’s Christmas Day service, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, Stephen Kaziimba, cited the example of the virgin birth of Jesus – the bedrock of Christian belief – in a sermon that sought to discourage DNA testing among the faithful.

“You take DNA and you find out that out of the four children, only two are yours,” he warned. “So just take care of the children the way they are, like Joseph did.”

The Ministry of Internal Affairs runs a government-accredited lab that conducts court-ordered investigations. It says the number of men seeking voluntary DNA testing has soared recently, with often “heartbreaking” outcomes.

“About 95% of those coming for DNA tests are men, but more than 98% of the results show these men are not the biological fathers,” Simon Peter Mundeyi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, told reporters in July.

His advice for men was not to seek DNA proof of paternity “unless you have a strong heart,” he said.

DNA testing centers have sprouted all over Uganda, with aggressive advertising by clinical labs on radio and in public spaces. Some passenger taxis in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, have had their back windows plastered with ads for facilities offering DNA testing.

In Nabumali, a small town where Kutoi is the mayor, most families can’t afford DNA testing fees, which exceed $200 at the only private laboratory equipped to do such work in nearby Mbale city.

The couples who seek Kutoi’s assistance can barely tolerate each other by the time they approach him. He tries to ease the tension with self-deprecating jokes and by sharing his own experience with the taboo topic. Kutoi likes to point out that although he doesn’t resemble his father, he was picked as the family heir anyway, 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 pay him a visit. He could be punished, including being forced to pay a fine, Kutoi said.

“You are not supposed to pronounce that I am suspecting that this child is not mine,” said Kutoi, adding that being drunk was no excuse for such an utterance.

These days many paternity disputes in Uganda revolve around the distribution of property after the family patriarch has died, but also during divorce proceedings when spousal support is contested.

In the most prominent recent case, court-ordered DNA testing showed a wealthy academic in Kampala was not the father of one of his three children. That case has been widely covered by the local press, underscoring paternity as an issue affecting a wide range of families.

The Rev. Robert Wantsala, vicar of a small Anglican parish in the eastern district of Mbale, spoke about the array of paternity disagreements he has encountered. He recalled a woman who had her late husband’s son DNA tested before he could be considered an estate beneficiary, two men who tussled over a child each believed to be his and a man who told his grown son he wanted a DNA test for not behaving like a family member.

“The man said to his son, ‘This character is not in my family,'” Wantsala said, recalling an incident from 2023.

The son responded forcefully, winning the approval of his community by telling his father that he would agree to a test “on condition that you invite my (dead) mother.”

Wantsala echoed the advice of Kaziimba, the Anglican primate, saying he always tells doubting men to leave the matter to God.

“When they come, in whichever way they come, children are children,” he said. “A child that is born in the home, that is your child. Even in African tradition that is how it was.”

The men who seek DNA testing without thinking of the consequences are wasting their time, Kutoi said.

“For us, they knew the child belonged to you regardless,” he said, speaking of African traditional society.

Disowning children was unheard of, although some men were known to discreetly take measures like offering the disputed son a land inheritance far removed from the ancestral compound in which the heir would be installed, Kutoi said.

Other religious leaders have organized counseling sessions.

Andrew Mutengu, pastor of Word of Faith Ministries in Mbale, said paternity is a recurring subject in many disputes he mediates among his 800 congregation members.

Last month he helped the wife of a rich businessman whose young daughter was claimed by a former boyfriend, a local barber. After the woman confessed she had been unfaithful, Mutengu summoned the barber, who agreed to stop publicizing his claim in the child’s interest.

“He goes around bragging that ‘I am the father,'” he said of the barber. “It was actually causing issues because this woman is in a home with another man who is actually the known husband.”

Mutengu said he believes more men in his community would seek DNA testing if it were cheaper, no matter faith leaders’ appeals.

Even Kutoi sounded doubtful when his 29-year-old son crossed the compound one recent afternoon at their home in Nabumali. The son is of light skin and taller than his father, who used the opportunity to tell a joke.

“You saw this tall boy. That is my son,” he said. “When you looked at him, did he look like me?”

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