A court in Uganda has sentenced more than 100 women to one month of community service each after confessing to sending their children to beg in the capital, Kampala.
The court also barred the women from returning to the city and ordered them to be sent back to their hometowns in Napak district in northern Uganda, private newspaper Daily Monitor reported.
Women asked for leniency.
Some of the victims were widows, while others were single mothers, state newspaper New Vision reported.
“I have listened to their cries and a [jail] sentence would be inappropriate. I have to enforce a deterrent sentence…I will sentence them to community service. In default, you will serve one month of imprisonment,” the judge in the case, Judge Edgar Karakire, was quoted as saying by the Daily Monitor, with a maximum sentence of six months.
The women were arrested last month in a raid to clear the capital of beggars ahead of three international summits to be held there.
The children were taken to Masulita Children’s Village in Uganda, where rescued children are housed.