The Bakiga people were known to expel to Akampene just as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, young women who got pregnant out of wedlock. They were left alone without food or basic stuff.
What happened to them and the child they carried wasn’t cared for. Many women had been stranded on Akampene and had their own lives ended.
While British colonization interfered with and effectively modified many local traditions, what the Bakiga called okuhena was spared due to the remoteness of the Bakiga homeland in western Uganda.
Among the people, it was thought that young women who had become pregnant before marriage brought shame to their families. But when found “untainted,” young marriageable women could also get a beautiful bride price for her family.
The women were rescued at times off the island. But in petite boats these knights were usually men of lesser means who couldn’t bear the expenses of contracting a marriage.
In 2017, a woman whose progeny was believed to be a centenarian, Mauda Kyitaragabirwe, spoke to the BBC about how she was rescued from Akampene when she was pregnant at about 12.
A fisherman approached her in his boat and offered to take her home. “I asked him whether he was tricking me and wanted to throw me into the water,” said Ms Kyitaragabirwe.
The two lived together as a couple. “We had six children together. We stayed in this home together until he died,” the older woman added.
Okuhena is no longer possible in modern Uganda these days. But that doesn’t mean that times have changed on what is expected of women before they get married.
