NABUMALI, Uganda (AP) — Among the most sensitive family disputes Moses Kutoi mediates are those involving upset men wondering why some of their children don’t look like them.
For the leader of the Ugandan clan attuned to the wisdom of his ancestors, the matter is taboo, which should never be discussed with others. However Kutoi feels compelled to intervene in the hope of saving marriages that sometimes become violent and are about to break up.
“Even I, I don’t look like my father,” recently said the leader of the clan to one man who did not believe that he was helping.
Paternity has become a major test of faith in the East African country as DNA testing becomes more widely available, fueled in part by published reports of known Ugandans who eventually discovered they were not the biological fathers of some of their children.
The issue has become so heated that clerics and traditional leaders are now urging tolerance and a return to the kind of African teachings that village elders like Kutoi say they support.
At last year’s Christmas Day service, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Stephen Kaziimba, cited the example of the virgin birth of Jesus — the foundation of the Christian faith — in a sermon that sought to discourage DNA testing among the faithful.
“You take the DNA and find out that of the four children, only two are yours,” he warned. “So take care of the children as they are, just as Joseph did.”
Paternity disputes are proliferating
The Ministry of Internal Affairs runs a government-accredited laboratory that conducts court-ordered investigations. She says the number of men seeking voluntary DNA testing has increased recently, with often “heartbreaking” results.
“About 95% of those who come for DNA tests are men, but more than 98% of the results show that these men are not biological fathers,” said Simon Peter Mundeyi, spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 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 sprung up all over Uganda, with aggressive advertising by clinical laboratories on the radio and in public spaces. Some passenger taxis in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, had their rear windows plastered with advertisements for facilities offering DNA tests.
In Nabumali, a small town where Kutoi is the mayor, most families cannot afford DNA testing fees, which exceed $200 at the only private laboratory equipped to do such work in the nearby town of Mbale.
The couples who seek Kutoi’s help can barely tolerate each other when they approach him. He tries to relieve the tension with self-deprecating jokes and by sharing his own experience with the taboo subject. Kutoi likes to point out that although he doesn’t look like his father, he was still chosen as the heir of the family, which allowed him to become a clan leader among the Bagisu people.
In the past, if a man spoke publicly about paternity concerns, the elders of the community 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 suspect this child is not mine,” said Kutoi, adding that being drunk was no excuse for such a word.
The disputes are related to property and divorce proceedings
These days many paternity disputes in Uganda revolve around the distribution of property after the death of the family patriarch, but also during divorce proceedings when spousal support is contested.
In the most prominent recent case, court-ordered DNA tests revealed that a wealthy academic in Kampala was not the father of one of these three children. That case was widely covered by the local press, highlighting paternity as an issue that affects a wide range of families.
Rev. Robert Wantsala, vicar of a small Anglican parish in the eastern district of Mbale, spoke of the range of paternity disagreements he encountered. He recalled a woman who had the DNA test of her deceased husband’s son before he could be considered a beneficiary of the estate, two men who fought over a child each believed to be his and a man who told his grown son he wanted a DNA test for not acting like a family member.
“The man said to his son, ‘This character is not in my family,'” said Wantsala, recalling an incident from 2023.
The son responded strongly, and won the approval of his community by telling his father that he would agree to a test “by inviting my (dead) mother.”
Wantsala repeated the advice of Kaziimba, the Anglican primate, and said that he always tells men who doubt to leave the matter in God’s hands.
“When they come, whatever way they come, kids are kids,” he said. “A child born in the house, that is your child. Even in the African tradition it was like that.”
Men who seek DNA testing without thinking about the consequences are wasting their time, Kutoi said.
“For us, they knew the child was yours regardless,” he said, speaking of traditional African society.
Rejection of children was not unheard of, although some men were known to take discreet measures such as offering the disputed son an inheritance of land far from the ancestral compound in which the heir would be installed, said Kutoi.
Faith leaders counsel families
Other religious leaders organized counseling sessions.
Andrew Mutengu, pastor of Word of Faith Ministries in Mbale, said that paternity is a recurring topic in many disputes that he mediates among the 800 members of his congregation.
Last month he helped the wife of a rich businessman whose young daughter was being wooed by an ex-boyfriend, a local barber. After the woman confessed that she was unfaithful, Mutengu called the barber, who agreed to stop publicizing his claim in the interest of the child.
“He brags that ‘I am the father’,” he said of the barber. “It was actually causing problems because this woman is in a house with another man who is actually the known man.”
Mutengu said he believes more men in his community would seek DNA testing if it were cheaper, regardless of the appeals of faith leaders.
Even Kutoi looked doubtful when his 29-year-old son crossed the compound one recent afternoon at their home in Nabumali. The boy is fair-skinned and taller than his father, who used the opportunity to tell a joke.
“You saw this tall boy. This is my son,” he said. “When I looked at him, was he like me?”
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.