In the more secure south of the country, children in Uganda still face many difficulties. Just under 50% of the population is aged 14yrs or younger and life expectancy is 63.37 years (2019). Uganda continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world with sub-standard health care, high rates of malnutrition and diseases such as malaria rampant, assisted by less than half of those living in Uganda having access to safe drinking water. Around 41% of population live in poverty. There are an estimated 800,000 children orphaned through AIDS/HIV, out of an overall orphan population of some 1.2 million. Literacy rates are relatively high for males at 77% however this falls to just 57% for females. 18% of children never enrol at school and a further 66%, who have enrolled, drop out during their primary and secondary school years. Attendance at school is also affected by the high rates of malaria with 40% of all students being affected at any given time.

Children in Uganda are expected to attend seven years of primary school which is supposedly free, but in reality, the government provides the teachers' salaries and the building, but children's families are expected to pay for their own books, pencils, food and even for the teacher's food and accommodation when provided. This often means in larger families only one child can attend at any given time. Children progress each year if they pass their end of year exams or remain behind. As such, a child starting primary education at the age of thirteen, will leave when they are twenty or older if they have failed any of the final year exams. Even so-called children in their twenties when still at school can be brutalised as punishment by teaching staff in a country where corporal punishment is supposed to be illegal.