UGANDA-CHILDREN: Robbed of Their Childhood by Armed Men

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Nov 20 1996 (IPS) - Over the past two years, more than 3,000 children have been kidnapped in northern Uganda by armed opposition fighters, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“The girls are sexually abused by soldiers and are often given as ‘wives’ in lieu of other forms of payment,” UNICEF said in a statement made available to IPS on Tuesday. “The boys are used to carry arms and equipment during long treks back and forth to Sudan.

“Both boys and girls are forced to take part in armed attacks, often on their own villages and communities.”

“These children are victims not only of war,” the statement quoted Carol Bellamy, executive Director of UNICEF, as saying, “but of the lamentable failure of adults — on all sides of most conflicts — to protect the lives and welfare of their children.”

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, who are particularly active in Gulu, Kitgum and other northern districts of Uganda, have been accused of scores of deliberate killings and hundreds of abductions. Captives are often tortured, and those who try to escape risk being killed. A few of those abducted have been able to escape, returning with horrific stories of their ordeals, which they narrated to UNICEF.

“In the bush camp I was allocated a man to become his second wife,” said Estella (15), one of those who managed to escape. “All the girls were allocated to men to become their husbands by force. They didn’t care whether he was too big, old or sick. They just forced you to be his wife.”

“One of the boys attempted to escape but he was arrested,” said David (12). “All the children were given a big stick and were ordered to beat him till he died. The rebel commander warned us that if we ever leave the rebels, the spirits of people we killed would follow and attack us.

“Sometimes when I am sleeping, the boy we killed visits me and accuses me of killing him when he was innocent. Sometimes, even during the day, I hear him crying, begging for mercy to me not to kill him.”

Bellamy said the abductions had increased in recent months.

Children who escape are usually debriefed by the government forces and then turned over to a rehabilitation centre run by World Vision and supported by UNICEF.

The centre aims to assist these children in returning home. However, reintegration is becoming increasingly difficult, UNICEF says. “Some communities are reluctant to take their children back, fearing that the rebels will return to recapture these children, that the children have contracted HIV/AIDS during captivity, or that the adolescents will be rebellious after their experience in the military camps,” said the statement.

The rehabilitation centre in Gulu is now home to around 300 children.

Bellamy said for over a decade, a pattern of violence in which hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, schools and livelihoods has shattered the lives of an entire generation of children.

In Gulu, one of the most affected districts, 179 out of 180 primary schools are now closed; only 11 out of 45 health centres are functional. Even the most basic services have collapsed in the face of continued conflict and insecurity.

“We want the whole international community to recognise the plight of these children, and the urgent need to put a stop to their suffering,” said Bellamy.

She called upon the rebels to release all the children now in captivity.

Her call followed the launch of the ‘Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children’, which was presented at the United Nations on Nov. 8 by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and his expert on children in armed conflict, Graca Machel of Mozambique.

The Report calls for a global campaign to stop the recruitment of children under the age of 18 into armed forces and to ensure that all forces demobilise their under-18s immediately. It urges all countries to support the speedy adoption of the draft ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child’, raising the minimum age of recruitment and participation in armed forces to 18 years.

The LRA has denied that it forcibly recruits child soldiers. “That’s not true. Children who come to us are orphans whose parents have been killed by (President Yoweri) Museveni’s army,” said a rebel representative here. “The children come to us for protection and we don’t recruit them in our army.”

But Ugandan newspapers and TV have often carried stories and images of children abducted by the rebel movement.

Rights groups like the London-based Amnesty International and Africa Watch have also documented cases of atrocities such as forced recruitment through abduction, rape and the cutting off of the ears, lips or limbs of civilians suspected by the LRA of collaborating with the government.

The LRA, headed by herbalist Joseph Kony and propagating an idiosyncratic version of Christianity, began its rebellion in 1987.