---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: IRIN <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 3:03 AM Subject: Your daily selection of IRIN Africa English reports, 7/7/2015 To: Elisabeth Janaina <[email protected]>
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humanitarian news and analysis
Table of contents
1. For Ugandan children born of war, the struggle continues
<#14e6af956bff4341_1>
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*For Ugandan children born of war, the struggle continues
<http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101721>*
[image: lead photo]KAMPALA, 7 July 2015 (IRIN) - Actual combat may have
ended almost a decade ago in northern Uganda, but for many women abducted
by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and the children they conceived in
captivity, the war is far from over. Sexual exploitation, beatings,
stigmatization and community rejection, lack of medical care and education,
and deprivation of land rights are among the challenges faced by those who
escaped from or were released by the LRA.
For two decades from the mid-1980s, between 10,000 and 15,000 girls and
women were abducted from their homes in northern Uganda to serve as
fighters, porters and sex slaves of LRA commanders. These forced unions
resulted in a population group often neglected by post-war recovery
programmes: children born of war.
According to a recent article
<https://www.ictj.org/news/uganda-children-born-war-future> published by
the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) “Thousands of such
children exist on the margins, fathered through sexual violence by not only
the LRA, but also government forces and a multitude of other state and
non-state armed actors.”
A new report
<http://justiceandreconciliation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Alone-Like-A-Tree-Reintegration-Challenges-Facing-Children-Born-of-War-and-Their-Mothers-in-Northern-Uganda1.pdf>
by the Justice and Reconciliation Project, based in the northern town of
Gulu, points out that scores more women were subjected to sexual violence
and exploitations in the so-called “protected villages” where most of the
population of northern Uganda were forced to live during the war.
“As if the original violations were not severe enough, female victims are
especially susceptible to ongoing forms of re-victimisation that extend
long after initial violations occur,” says the report, titled, “Alone Like
a Tree: Reintegration Challenges Facing Children Born of War [CBW] and
Their Mothers in Northern Uganda.”
<http:///Photo/Details/201507071236410339/The-members-of-Awach-tailoring-group-Gulu-district-The-group-is-of-mothers-of-children-born-out-of>
Photo: Lindsay McClain Opiyo/IRIN
The members of Awach tailoring group, Gulu district. The group is of
mothers of children born out of war and other conflict related situations
*Consequences live on*
The consequences for the women of protracted stigmatisation can include
depression and other forms of mental illness as well as increased
vulnerability to future abuse and violence due to economic marginalisation.
Women interviewed by the report’s authors said their new partners often “do
not want to pay their [children’s] school fees, and the step-parents are
reportedly a major source of insults against CBW. They are continuously
ostracised and isolated in some homes.”
Interviewees also reported many cases of sexual abuse of both female and
male CBW by stepfathers and other relatives. Reporting such abuse was very
difficult, especially when the perpetrators were members of the armed
forces.
“In the new relationships, the slightest disagreement between husband and
wife gets blamed on the women’s past. Even when the man is also
formerly-abducted, he can stigmatize the woman, accusing her of sleeping
with many men from the bush as a means of justifying his abuse,” says the
report.
One 17-year-old boy born in LRA captivity told the researchers: “We are
sometimes told the home we are staying in is not our home, and the person
taking care of us is not our father. That we should go and look for our
father. This is always said by other children in that home. This makes our
lives miserable.”
*Neglected by reintegration programmes*
According to Jackson Odong of the National Memory and Documentation Centre
in the northern Ugandan town of Kitgum, the needs of such populations have
been neglected.
“Children born in captivity and their mothers continue to suffer because
while they were encouraged to return, there was limited support for their
reintegration. Focus was largely on ex-combatants. There have been little
or no specific interventions targeting surviving children and mothers,” he
said.
Irene Ikomu, a human rights lawyer and the coordinator of Parliament Watch
Uganda, told IRIN that the report highlighted the need to evaluate current
reintegration processes in northern Uganda. “There are clearly gaps that
are yet to be addressed and this explains the continued challenges despite
peace,” she said.
“Successful reintegration is not just about short-term concerns and
political stability, but should especially focus on the long-term
strategies for economic reconstruction and development,” added Ikomu.
“In northern Uganda, we cannot say we have fully addressed reintegration
without dealing with the issue of land access for the former combatants and
victims, especially with regard to CBW,” she said.
The chairman of Uganda’s Amnesty Commission, Peter Onega, shared this view.
“It’s a serious issue. If not addressed urgently, it’s recipe for violence
and conflict. As a commission, we haven’t done proper reintegration of
these people because we are incapacitated. We don’t have the resources due
to low government funding,” he told IRIN, explaining that only around
US$1.5 million of the $2.5 million budgeted for reintegration programmes
annually had been forthcoming.
“We need to carry out community sensitization, dialogues and reconciliation
meetings to create an atmosphere for the community members to fully accept
and live peacefully with these children and women,” he added.
<http:///Photo/Details/201507071241260637/The-children-born-of-war-and-their-mothers-performing-Acholi-traditional-dance-in-Atiak-sub-county>
Photo: Claire Kahunde/IRIN
The children born of war and their mothers performing Acholi traditional
dance in Atiak sub county, Amuru district
The ICTJ article noted that while rebels who surrendered “were awarded
reinsertion packages of basic household items by the government, there were
no additional allowances for those with children born in captivity. This
trend continues today, with many governmental and non-governmental
programmes recognizing formerly-abducted persons as a special category for
assistance, but not children born of war.”
Even within this category, different groups have different needs, the
article explained.
“For instance, female and male children will face different challenges in
societies in which females’ families receive dowry when their daughter
marries while males are expected to inherit land and other resources when
they come of age. In northern Uganda, some families and clans have rejected
male children born of war to a higher extent than females because they do
not want to allocate land to them on which to settle when they come of age.”
In March 2014, the Women’s Advocacy Network, a coalition of NGOs,
petitioned parliament to set up a gender-sensitive reparations fund to
provide free health services to women and children affected by the
insurgency, and a mechanism to “identify, integrate, and regularize
stateless children born in captivity.” The network also called on the
government to “identify, integrate, and resettle child victims of
formerly-abducted women whose clan/cultural belongings are unknown.”
Nothing came of the petition.
so/am
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