A youthful couple that allegedly lost one of their twin babies at Mulago Hospital's Maternity Ward last year has asked President Museveni to intervene and save their young family from agony.

According to Jennifer Musimenta, 21, the mother to the missing baby, she went to Mulago Hospital on the afternoon of March 14 last year to deliver and indeed she delivered two baby girls.

However, she was surprised when moments later; one of the nurses told her that one of the babies had died.

When her husband, Michael Mubangizi, 30, arrived hours later and she told him about her ordeal, he demanded that at least he be shown the dead body. The hospital's staff failed to do so.

The hospital only managed to produce a fresh body three days later, following the couple's persistence. Not convinced about the dead body, they reported the case to Wandegeya Police which did investigations.

When the Police subjected the dead baby's body to a DNA test at the Government Analytical Laboratories at Wandegeya, the results failed to march that of the couple, meaning the dead child was not theirs.

It is not clear where the dead baby was picked from and who the owners of the dead baby were and what they were given in place of their dead baby.

One and half years later the couple is still searching for their baby.

Musimenta insists she is convinced her baby is alive and staying somewhere.

"I dream about my baby," Musimenta told journalists on July 25 at the Centre for Health, Human rights and Development (CEHURD) offices in Kampala.

The couple says, the Police and Mulago Hospital tried to convince them to take the unidentified body with a package of Ush 400,000 to go home and bury but they refused and instead decided to pursue the matter further.

Now with the help of CEHURD, Mubangizi and Musimenta have decided to sue the executive director of Mulago National Referral Hospital, Uganda's biggest health facility and the Attorney General in court for violation of their human rights. The case was filed in the court on July 18.

The couple argues that by denying them access to authentic medical records, the opportunity to nurture and bring up their child, taking away their child without permission coupled with the daily mental anguish and agony they are going through because of denial to access their child or its body is a violation of their constitutional rights and they need answers.

"I gave birth to two girls, but I was given one. I was denied my child or its body and they even denied me my medical records," Musimenta says, "I am traumatized and psychologically tortured every day of my life every time I look at my other child."

Musimenta says her ordeal has made her reconsider giving birth in hospitals--a stance that probably magnifies the challenges of motherhood in the country.

According to David Kabanda, an advocate at CEHURD, a number of women are facing human rights violations in health facilities across Uganda when they go to give birth and he adds that most of these cases go unnoticed since the perpetrators of such violations are not made accountable for such injustices.

"These vulnerable women are not aware of their rights guaranteed under the Constitution and regional international human rights instruments," adds Moses Mulumba, the executive director of CEHURD.

"The couple's suffering reflects what so many mothers and their families go through when their rights are violated in the health facilities. It is time for everyone to act to stop these injustices," Mulumba said in a statement.

Musimenta and Mubangizi's situation sounds true in the wake of a Save the Children report released early in the year that ranked Uganda as the second worst country on the African continent where you do not want to be a mother.

The report, 'Surviving the first day, State of the World's Mothers 2013,' reiterated the poor maternal health services in the country where statistics show that as many as 16 mothers die every day due to delivery-related problems, many of which are avoidable.

Kabanda noted that besides Uganda's Constitution, the country has ratified many regional and international covenants that guarantee people's rights and these ought to be implemented by the government.

"If the mothers go to hospitals [as they are being encouraged to do so by the government] but the end result is death or child theft, why should they go there to deliver? If a mother goes to hospital, gives birth to a child but she is denied information about the status of the child that is an injustice," Kabanda said.

Kabanda said these human rights violations shouldn't go unnoticed anymore.

Mubangizi says since he has spent the last one and half years looking for the family's missing child without any success, the government should compensate his young family for the lost time, loss of employment and for the anguish the family is going through.

"I call upon every person, including President Museveni to help us," Mubangizi says.

He says his employers at Dott Services no longer trust him because he is always away following up the case of his lost child.

CEHURD wants this case to serve as an example.

"It is not that we are against the government but we are helping the government to do what it is supposed to do," Kabanda said.

"If I give birth to my child, I want my child. If my child is pronounced dead, give me my dead body," he said.