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Pastor Wilson Bugembe in child adoption scandal

Parents claim Bugembe blindsided them in the processes that led their children to be taken them away to foreign countries.
Wilson Bugembe
Wilson Bugembe

Parents have been coming up one by one to accuse the pastor of blindsiding them in the processes that led to their children being taken away to foreign countries.

The most recent allegations stem from over 10 years ago, when Bugembe’s NGO named Mercy Childcare Uganda started taking up young children an putting them up for adoption by families mostly from the United States.

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One of the parents is Moses Mwanamboka, a local mechanic.

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He claims that Bugembe’s organization in 2011 took away his daughter named Joyce Alitubeera, who at the time was only 6months.

Moses had sired the child from an underage girl, who had to leave him under family pressures, leaving the baby behind.

He says, one of Bugembe’s agents named Apostle Winfred came to him and offered to help him to take care of his daughter through the non-profit organization.

My baby was very sick at the time and they promised to take her to hospital, so of course I surrendered her,” he said.

Moses says over the next months, he was allowed to go check on the baby, and that he found her living happily with about 8 other children.

Eventually however, he says, he learnt that his baby girl as been taken from the home to live with an American couple in Kansanga.

I was then invited and told to sign on some papers. I am not well educated, so when I asked them to read for me what the papers said, they said they were about me confirming that I was parent of the child,’ he said.

Later on Moses says, he learnt that his baby’s name had been changed from Alitubeera to Naya.

US Embassy

One time, he was invited to the United Embassy where he was also made to sign some more papers.

Around that time Moses says, they started mentioning the term “adoption” whose meaning he did not know.

For me, I thought “adoption” was the name of the person who was taking care of my child,” he said.

About three years later, he says, the organization sent him money to look for the baby’s mother, which he did successfully.

But from that time to this date, he says, he never got to see his child or the mother again.

He only learnt that the child was living in the United States.

Bugembe responds

In response, Pastor Wilson Bugembe admitted that some mistakes were made with some of the adoption processes, in regards to guiding the parents.

He noted that however, that all the legal processes were followed to the later.

The other good thing is that all these children are alive and well, I have checked,” he said.

For recourse, Bugembe said the courts granted the adoptions with provisions that allow disgruntled parents to have their children back if they so wish.

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