RESIDENTS FAULT DISTRICT LEADERS FOR ALLOWING OPERATION OF NIGHT MARKETS

Photo taken on May 21, 2025 showing Vendors taking positions at Awuzia market close to 7PM ready to commence night business.

By Godwin Abedican
Arua
 
The residents of Lazebu Central, Lazebu parish in Logiri Sub-county Arua district have accused the leaders of the district for turning blind eyes towards the disturbing night operation of the main market in the area.
 
Awuzia market the main market in the area has continued to defy previous guidelines that were set in place against its night operations following concerns of insecurity and lack of sanity among the traders and people who occupy the market at night.
 
Speaking during a community baraza organized by CEFORD on last week, for people to voice their concerns on service delivery and accountability in the area, Licoru Scholastica Cornelio Ondia narrated that it’s painful to see women out in the market beyond the time that someone would literally expect them to be home.
 
“In all other markets, I see business being done from morning but here in Lazebu, business starts at night. From 9pm to 3 am you still see people including married women in the market. How will the government help us in this? It hurts me so much. Women are now getting more useless about it especially when it comes to alcoholism. This market issue is too much for us. The challenge is that, there is a divided opinion because there are those who want it in the morning but some want it at night from 9pm and above,” she said.
 
Buniga Festo resident and businessman in Lazebu noted that, the negative effects of night markets have far reaching negative effects that they have seen evidently swallowing the entire area in to high risks of spread of sexually transmitted diseases because there is a lot of misbehavior and immorality during the night in the market.
 
“Nowadays the market begins at night. From midnight to 2 am you find women, I mean married women in the market. This is a situation where almost everybody is drunk. Men always have sex with these drunk women in groups or convoy. It is terrible. What is the health status of the men who are having sex with one woman in a group just because they are drunk? This is very shameful. Imagine they are married women. How safe are their homes and families? Logiri Sub-county must help us make this market operate at the right time, he called out strongly.
 
Karen Namutono, the Acting Community Development Officer (CDO) Logiri sub county argues that the implication of such markets has a bigger negative outcome against the women than men.
 
“The challenges I see with the night market is that very many times we have seen many women from this parish being raped and this is normally done during night hours. Most of these women now after coming to the market during night hours end up drinking alcohol which is again very hazardous to their lives. This is how men take advantage of them being drunk and do anything they want with them. We have also lost some women in regards to this,” she said in an interview.
 
“It is the people who want the night market imagine you have a wife or daughter and you allow her to go to the market and be there until 3 AM, how do I as the CDO become the one to tell her not to go to the market? There should be family meetings to regulate the movement of family members. If we leave the entire management of our families to the government, we can never develop in our homes. If we take responsibility, we can come up with by-laws to regulate the market and have specific times for its operation given the dangers we have seen,” she added.
 
However, John Bosco Odama, the LC3 Chairperson Logiri Sub-county blames the operation of the market on the residents though he confirmed that efforts towards restricting the operation of same market are underway.
 
“Markets are started by the community. The government only comes to help. This is a situation where we were able to tell the community members the dangers of a night market. We tried our best. They started following what we said but after some time, they went back to the night operations. We want to make sure that next financial year, things must change and the markets should end at 6 Pm,” Odoma pledged.
 
During the covid19 period markets in the district were stopped from operating at night but after things went back to normal Awuzia market gradually got fully fledged into a night market under the watch of the leaders.