Children and Domestic Water Collection in Uganda: Exploring Policy and Intervention Options that Promote Child Protection

This chapter is primarily based on a study conducted in a rural community in south-central Uganda in Makondo Parish, Ndagwe sub-county, Lwengo district. The study, which employed mixed methods, investigated household dynamics in collection, transportation and use of safe-drinking water. The study findings are complemented by additional interviews with children water collectors in a peri-urban context in Wakiso District that sought, among others, to capture voices and perspectives of children regarding their experiences in water transportation. Our findings confirm that the burden of collecting water for domestic use is almost exclusively a domain of children and their mothers or other female members of the household. The distances covered and the time spent in collecting water, the volumes and mode of transportation are all potentially hazardous to children’s physical and emotional health, which inadvertently have not been addressed by rural water policy and interventions. We argue for water supply options and service interventions that are consciously designed to sustainably address risks and vulnerabilities associated with water collection and transportation by children. Ensuring increased coverage of improved water sources within a distance of one and a half kilometers, promotion of rain water harvesting in communities, ensuring sustainable operation and maintenance of point-water sources as well as protection of open water sources are some of the supply related interventions that could address the burden of children in water transportation. It is not the intention of this chapter to promote child involvement in work, but rather, to advocate for a service delivery environment that not only lessens the physical burden of water collection for children but also other environmental and social risks associated with their ‘socially and culturally defined responsibility’ of water collection.