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.”
Source: ABC news
