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JRP HOLDS INTERNATIONAL TRANSFORMATIVE MEMORY EXCHANGE

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PRESS RELEASE SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2019

GULU– Between May 19 to 25 the Justice and Reconciliation Project, in partnership with the University of British Colombia, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, will host the first International Transformative Memory exchange in Gulu.

The exchange will bring together scholars, artists, and community-based memory workers from Indonesia, Canada, Colombia, and Uganda to collaborate and exchange knowledge.

The theme of the international exchange is to deeply reflect on the transformative possibilities of memory. Through this exchange, we suggest that persons and collectives who endure, suffer and live through violence – and whose memory is often denied, erased or devalued by regimes of power – transform relations between each other, the living and the dead, through memory acts. Persons transform relations of oppression, dispossession and power, and raise questions about shared responsibility and ways of being together through memories.

Why an International Exchange?

Dr. Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, one of the principal investigators of the Transformative Memory Exchange, believes the exchange is a way to construct knowledge. She hopes the week-long exchange is going to enrich knowledge on what makes memory transformative.

‘I think that by learning and dialoguing with so many groups here in northern Uganda, all of us will enrich our ideas on what makes the work of memory transformative,” Riaño stated.

She holds the view that memory is transformative after a period of mass violence where people experienced profound loss.

The partners of the project further believe the exchange brings participants into dialogue with each other and in relation to Acholi ways of knowing, remembering, relating and being. The project will involve storytelling, art, music, walking tours, and orality.

Through the exchange, we hope to open a creative space for generating knowledge related to our themes and questions. During the seven days there will be an array of activities including field visits to sites and initiatives of memory, international roundtables, and public events.

About the Justice and Reconciliation Project. The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) promotes locally sensitive and sustainable peace in Africa’s Great Lakes region by focusing on the active involvement of grassroots communities in local-level transitional justice. Formerly a partnership of the Gulu District NGO Forum and the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, Canada, JRP has played a key role in transitional justice in Uganda since 2005, through seeking to understand and explain the interests, needs, concerns and views of the communities affected by war between the Lord‟s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). For more information please visit http://www.justiceandreconciliation.org

Download this press release here: Press Release

Child tracing in post-conflict northern Uganda: A social project to unite children born of war with their paternal clans

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Grandfather receives his children home as he directs them to step on an egg, the children are expected to break the egg in a symbol of cleaning and getting rid of the evil spirits that a person could be having.

This report is the result of collaboration between the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), with the support of the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP).

The original research for the report was envisioned to focus on women’s experiences of seeking reparations for sexual violence, funded by the PWIAS, at the University of British Columbia. Through a process of consultations with WAN members, however, the process of child tracing emerged as a social project considered vital to the well-being of children born as the result of forced marriages in wartime.

At the time of writing, child tracing activities were on-going at various stages outlined in the report. Mothers and their children, some now young adults, initiated the process of child tracing on their own. With the assistance of WAN members and networks, community leaders and non-governmental organizations such as JRP and Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice (WIGJ), these informal efforts received wider social support, particular with funding to the initiative from WIGJ between 2016-17.

The report involved a review of secondary data collected by WAN and JRP, including reports, recordings and video-tapes, field notes, and interviews and focus group discussions with WAN members and child tracing team leaders and project officers at JRP and WAN. It is intended to highlight the process and possibilities of child tracing for stakeholders.

It was supported by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant (SSHRC PG) Conjugal Slavery in War (CSiW): A partnership for the study of enslavement, marriage and masculinities.

Researched and written by: Tinashe Mutsonziwa, Ketty Anyeko & Erin Baines in Vancouver, Canada and Grace Acan & Evelyn Amony in Gulu, Uganda.

Download this report here (Pdf).

Long-Term Effects of Sexual Violence on Women and Families: The Case of Northern Uganda

Statements & Briefs

The following brief is a summary of a research project that was conducted by Dr. Mahlet Woldetsadik, in collaboration with the Justice Reconciliation Project and the Women’s Advocacy Network between 2015 and 2018.  The brief documents the persisting effects of conflict-related sexual violence on survivors and the indirect impact of wartime sexual violence on families of survivors in northern Uganda. In addition to the summary of results presented, the brief also offers tailored and comprehensive recommendations and next steps for different stakeholders.

Read the full brief here.

Gender Equality for All: A Report Based on a Consultative Dialogue with Stakeholders in Northern Uganda on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

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Gender Equality For All

This report is a result of a consultative dialogue between JRP, its partners and stakeholders. It focuses on the complex spectrum of conflict-related violence that continues to affect marginalised victims and survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in Uganda.

We acknowledge that, albeit its importance,the dearth of initiatives on SGBV calls for an increase in interventions on conflict related SGBV in northern Uganda. The report argues that violence in general is intertwined with structural impediments that continue to pervasively affect societies in Northern Uganda long after the conflict ended. Inherently the continued prevalence of SGBV is a result of inequality that exists due to unequal power relations between men and women in matters such as land ownership, decision-making and community leadership, among others. Added to this is the importance of acknowledging that the widespread effects of rape and other forms of sexual violence such as forced marriage often result into unwanted pregnancies and children which leaves the majority of women suffering. Among young women who have returned from LRA captivity, the report also looks at the phenomenon of Children Born of War (CBW) whose needs and aspirations are often rarely factored into research and policy.

This report is a result of a series of consultations with stakeholders to disseminate the results of research findings based on fieldwork that JRP undertook over the past two years with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It incorporates the workshop deliberations in Lira, Gulu and Adjumani, outlining some of the critical steps necessary in SGBV programming for women, men and CBW as a result of the LRA conflict in Northern Uganda. Part of the vision that is critical for renewed programming is laid out at the end of the report that largely points out that women, men and children should co-exist in mutually empowering relationships; where all are valued as equal and active players in transformative gender relations emanating from social, cultural and economical barriers in society.

Key areas for programming

After engaging participants over three separate days, the following key areas for programming on SGBV were identified:

Embracing new dimensions on victimhood: Participants noted that everyone irrespective of sex or age can become a victim of SGBV. During conflict times, men too have become targets of SGBV, although the incidence remains prevalent among women and girls in Northern Uganda. More often than not, the mention of SGBV during conflict evokes images of women raped, but not the child born as a result of that rape. In terms of programming, children too must be seen as primary victims of rape, there is a chance that they shall be left out.

Coordination among stakeholders: It is vital to build synergies with other stakeholders, as this would eliminate the disconnect between the various aspects of programming. In particular, coordination is crucial between aspects such as redress for SGBV and others like humanitarian assistance and national/regional development; education; and health. In this way it is possible to identify linkages that are important for subsequent programming and how one programme can make a contribution to others.

Multi-sectoral response: There is need to embark on a multi-sectoral approach by ensuring that all partners play a role in prevention and response of SGBV in order to address unequal power relations that exacerbate violence and entrenches aspects of vulnerability for women, men and children. The multi-sectoral model calls for a holistic inter-organisational and inter-agency effort that promotes participation of all persons concerned and coordination across sectors, including (but not limited to) health, psychosocial, legal/justice and security.

Comprehensive and long-term response to violence: The importance of looking at the bigger picture of violence in Uganda and capturing its entire spectrum was emphasised. This would ensure that the exclusive focus on SGBV does not reinforce the perspective of women as victims, but also looks at the history, dimensions and manifestations of the conflict that spanned from pre-colonial times and was entrenched along racial and regional lines by successive regimes during periods following independence. This therefore calls for prioritising long-term approaches to address the root causes of conflict through a gendered lens.

Capacity building, empowerment and sensitisation: These are crucial avenues to ensure that the right human resources and expertise in dealing with SGBV are available; the local population is well informed to be able to challenge unequal power relations; and that crimes related to gender are openly acknowledged and taken on by society in order to avoid re-victimisation. This would go a long way in ensuring there is collective action at the community level as opposed to continuous dependence on outside support.

Participation and local ownership: It is important to realise that violence usually occurs within a cultural space. It is within these spaces that we need to articulate the needs of victims and survivors. Redress for SGBV should therefore avoid top-down models of programming such that planning, design and implementation resonate with local communities, ensuring that their practices and perceptions are taken into account without reinforcing the cultural identities of men as superior beings. It is also important to integrate programming in ways that are more inclusive and broader taking into consideration the gender perspective of the roles of men and women.

Download this report here (pdf).

Engaging Men and Boys in Redress for Conflict-SGBV in Northern Uganda

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Engaging Men and Boys in Redress for Conflict-SGBV in Northern Uganda, JRP Field Note 25, March 2017
Engaging Men and Boys in Redress for Conflict-SGBV in Northern Uganda, JRP Field Note 25, March 2017

This report presents the findings and recommendations from widespread consultations by the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) on the conflict experiences of men and boys in northern Uganda and how to effectively engage them in redress for conflict sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

In the last 10 years in which JRP empowered conflict-affected communities in Uganda to participate in processes of justice, healing and reconciliation, especially through the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN), most interventions explicitly targeted women and girls. This was largely because women and girls disproportionately suffered from conflict SGBV. Consequently, men and boys were minimally engaged in redress.

Preliminary discussions that JRP held with the communities in which it works revealed that men and boys often felt neglected in recovery interventions by civil society and government institutions. This led to their resentment and even hostility towards women and girls who were beneficiaries of post-conflict programmes and services.

In August 2015, JRP set out to better understand how men and boys could be engaged in redress for conflict SGBV in northern Uganda. The consultations explored the gendered experiences of men and boys during and as a result of the armed conflict; how it affected gender relations in communities and homes and how men and boys have been and could in future be engaged in redress.

A total of 161 respondents in Dzaipi sub-county in Adjumani district, Atanga sub-county in Pader district, Agweng sub-county in Lira district, and Gulu Municipality in Gulu District were consulted. A desk review was also done to assess comparative models for engaging men in gender-based violence prevention and response.

Key findings revealed that members of the community recognised men’s indispensable role in promoting gender equality and supported male engagement in redress for gendered conflict experiences as well as their involvement in the discourses for TJ, healing and reconciliation.

The recommendations focused on four key areas of improving relationships between women and men in the community; providing greater acknowledgment and redress; engaging men in redress for their experiences; and for engaging men in redress for women’s gendered experiences. The specific recommendations are summarised below under each are of focus.

Improving relationships between women and men in the community

  • Create safe spaces for men and women to discuss issues together such as meetings and gatherings where they would face each other and learn lessons together.
  • Organise community dialogue on gender and dealing with the past.
  • Provide mixed-sex trainings on conflict resolution and gender equality whereby the men and women would be educated together to reduce on the level of conflict in the homes.
  • Promote group sensitisation and peer support for members in the community.
  • Form initiatives for conflict mediation, healing and reconciliation through, for instance, peace building groups of duty bearers, communal meals and prayers for reconciliation and forgiveness.
  • Attend religious associations.
  • Provide support towards economic empowerment through livelihood projects to uplift people from abject poverty.
  • Enforce laws strictly especially those prohibiting alcoholism.
  • Establish rehabilitation centres to offer psychosocial support, counselling, grassroots information and education.
  • Advocate for behavioural change to address moral decadence across all the communities attributed to encampment and urbanisation.
  • Provide reparations and/or assistance to victims of conflict.
  • Create community projects to bring people together and provide information.

Providing greater acknowledgment and redress

  • Create community projects in a way that will not only acknowledge the pain of the war but also bring people together.
  • Form groups for collective advocacy especially in seeking material support for recovery; for training; truth telling and reconciliation,
  • Identify and engage male activists to understand their rights and responsibilities as well as create a better understanding of men’s problems in order to get solutions.
  • Integrate men’s empowerment into programmes of development partners and stakeholders by involving them in community meetings and WAN groups.
  • Put in place peer support forums for men to speak out and share their problems and concerns.
  • Implement community and family projects as a means of providing acknowledgement and redress.
  • Increase support towards formal and vocational education/training.
  • Implement affirmative action targeting men and boys in development and reintegration projects.
  • Provide reparation in terms of social services by government as well as awareness creation and legal aid services by NGOs.
  • Collect information on numbers and current status of conflict survivors to inform project design and funding support to enable them to receive appropriate support and redress.
  • Set up rehabilitation centres for psychosocial support to children and adults with mental health issues.

Engaging men in redress for their experiences

  • Form male groups for them to get counselling, gather and share opinions on issues concerning them, with influential or role models leading advocacy for the groups and mentoring members.
  • Form mixed groups of men and women so that they can share experiences.
  • Involve men and boys in training, workshops and other experience-sharing activities of WAN and other stakeholders.
  • Engage role models to educate fellow men about the importance of groups; inspire and encourage them to air out their concerns and demand their right to receive recovery support.

Engaging men in redress for women’s gendered experiences

  • Engage men in their spouses’ group activities so that they are informed and their understanding is enhanced on women’s redress issues in order for them to advocate for women’s rights; curb domestic violence and give views on how to support women.
  • Train men and build their capacity on peace building.
  • Initiate group projects of men and women for them to understand women’s rights; have a common understanding of goals; and share how to collectively achieve them.
  • Advocate for behavioural change to refrain from gossip and instead get involved in meetings where women share their stories, experiences and issues.
  • Involve men and women in joint Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) as a way to achieve economic independence and in order to allow them to prepare well for their future and that of their children.
  • It is hoped that through the report, future interventions that mainstream gender equality would address not only women’s gendered experiences, but also that of men and boys, ensuring that efforts for recovery and rehabilitation do not exclude or undermine men’s and boys’ gendered experiences.

Improving relationships between women and men in the community

  • Create safe spaces for men and women to discuss issues together such as meetings and gatherings where they would face each other and learn lessons together.
  • Organise community dialogue on gender and dealing with the past.
  • Provide mixed-sex trainings on conflict resolution and gender equality whereby the men and women would be educated together to reduce on the level of conflict in the homes.
  • Promote group sensitisation and peer support for members in the community.
  • Form initiatives for conflict mediation, healing and reconciliation through, for instance, peace building groups of duty bearers, communal meals and prayers for reconciliation and forgiveness.
  • Attend religious associations.
  • Provide support towards economic empowerment through livelihood projects to uplift people from abject poverty.
  • Enforce laws strictly especially those prohibiting alcoholism.
  • Establish rehabilitation centres to offer psychosocial support, counselling, grassroots information and education.
  • Advocate for behavioural change to address moral decadence across all the communities attributed to encampment and urbanisation.
  • Provide reparations and/or assistance to victims of conflict.
  • Create community projects to bring people together and provide information.

Download this field note here (pdf)

Coping Alone: Personal ways of seeking redress for survivors of conflict-SGBV

Field Notes,
Coping Alone Personal ways of seeking redress for survivors of conflict-SGBV, JRP Field Note 24
Coping Alone: Personal ways of seeking redress for survivors of conflict-SGBV, JRP Field Note 24

For over 20 years, the people of Northern Uganda, especially women and children, have been direct victims of a conflict between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Thousands of victims suffered violations related to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

Numerous studies have documented the increased acknowledgment of and response to the prevalence of SGBV during conflicts worldwide as well as the nature of these violations.  Despite this, little is known about the ways in which survivors of conflict SGBV seek redress and justice for their experiences, how they cope with the aftermath of the violence and the challenging obstacles they face in so doing. Findings suggest that even after wars and conflicts formally end, survivors of SGBV continue to experience re-victimisation and human rights violations in their respective local communities.

This field note draws upon 12 individual and group storytelling sessions with 103 survivors of conflict SGBV from Adjumani, Pader and Lira districts. It narrates survivors’ search for redress for SGBV during and after conflict and identifies the emergent patterns and themes across narratives. It concludes with recommendations for government, community and civil society stakeholders in order to increase survivors’ access to redress and accountability during and after conflict.

This field note is organised into 3 sections that narrate the stories of conflict SGBV survivors in search of redress during and after conflict, and identify the emerging patterns and themes across narratives. It also highlights ways in which survivors through their own initiatives cope with daily re-victimisation. The report concludes with recommendations for local government actors, the community and civil society stakeholders for increasing survivors’ access to redress. Names of the survivors have been changed in the field note for confidentiality purposes.

Key findings

  • The search for redress for survivors of SGBV is impeded by a number of factors which are mainly physical, psychological, socio-cultural and economic.
  • Due to lack of social and familial support systems, survivors of SGBV turn to their own ways of survival, some of which are non-constructive and not uplifting.
  • The attainment of redress is faced with physical, psychological, socio-cultural and economic challenges.
  • The accounts of SGBV survivors indicate that re-victimisation includes stigmatisation, rejection by family members, fending for children alone, domestic violence and land grabbing.
  • Constructive way of attaining redress or coping include peer support, counselling and psycho-social support, livelihood means, talking to couples, divine inspiration such as prayers and support from local authorities.
  • Non-constructive ways of coping or attaining redress include alcoholism, drug abuse, isolation and aggressiveness.

Recommendations

Highlighting the factors that should be taken into consideration for the benefit of survivors of SGBV, the field note presents the following recommendations:

Community leaders should ensure that reported cases of sexual violence and other forms of human rights violation within the communities are prosecuted.

Community leaders should establish support systems for all survivors of SGBV; resolve the daily challenges they encounter; as well as facilitate their search for redress and full reintegration within the communities.

Social conditions should also be adequately improved in order to provide for SGBV survivors at least the basics such as education, access to training as a means of capacity building and jobs to support themselves.

Stakeholders should foster and encourage counselling groups since it was established that counselling was an effective trajectory through which redress can be obtained for many victims.

Training and psychological preparation of the community which is vital in ensuring that returnees are not re-victimised or rejected both by the communities and their families or regarded as threats.

Community leaders should strongly advise against the practice of abuse of women and girls by establishing a supporting system and/or a platform that implicitly tackles women and girls’ abuse and inequalities in the communities and homes.

Download this Field Note here (pdf).

Mapping Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda: A Case Study of the Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions

Mapping Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda: A Case Study of the Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions

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Mapping Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda: A Case Study of the Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions
Mapping Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda: A Case Study of the Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions

 

Led by Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), with funding support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Supporting Access to Justice, Fostering Equity and Peace (SAFE) programme, this report, titled Mapping Regional  Reconciliation in Northern Uganda: A Case Study of the Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions, examines key conflict drivers at the sub-regional and community levels in the Acholi and Lango sub-regions, specifically, and northern Uganda more broadly, and identifies effective mechanisms for constructive social change processes towards regional reconciliation. It is a significant step towards comprehensively identifying and analysing obstacles to positive peace and reconciliation in the region to ensure that post-war recovery, reconciliation and development interventions are conflict-sensitive and aligned with the social, political and economic needs of the communities.

The report also identifies strategic and effective mechanisms to foster regional reconciliation in ways that value embedded local capacities, narratives and forms of agency in the communities. The report concludes by highlighting recommendations directed to key actors across the horizontal and vertical axis of the society, eliciting a multi-stakeholder approach to engendering sustainable structures of lasting peace and reconciliation in the Acholi and Lango sub-regions.

Download this report here: Mapping Regional Reconciliation in Northern Uganda (pdf)

We Are All The Same: Experiences of children born into LRA captivity

Field Notes, ,
We Are All The Same: Experiences of children born into LRA captivity
We Are All The Same: Experiences of children born into LRA captivity

Children born into the captivity of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) remain a largely neglected and overlooked child survivor population. The children who successfully transitioned out of the LRA exist on the margins of their society, stigmatised and with limited life opportunities. This field note offers a review of the lives of 29 such children living in the urban centre of Gulu town, drawn from a three-year project documenting their lives. While the children have developed strategies to conceal their true identities, this report determines ways to support their future well-being, while simultaneously contributing to the reconciliation process of their communities.

The research findings include:

The children face significant stigma from communities, peers, and even at times from family members, including violent abuse from stepfathers, so they employ strategies to keep their identities secret. Those whose fathers are top commanders still at-large fear for their safety if their fathers are captured. Other children do not know their lineages and long to connect. All the mothers find it difficult to tell them the realities of their identities. Despite such stigma and uncertain identities, the children insist they are the same as other children.

Support from family members is vital to their sense of well-being, especially with their mothers whom they love deeply. Many children lost siblings in the bush.

Many children live with memories and trauma. They remember the violence from the bush and feel the loss of a parent, or of both parents. Remembering is triggered by sadness resulting from quarrelling, beatings, or sickness. For some, their memories are physically embodied and manifest as spiritual problems, or psychosis. All the children who remember employ strategies to forget.

Religion is important in the children’s lives and prayer offers them a form of meditation to help them quiet their minds, while church provides them with a welcoming place to be among friends.

Children are unlikely to access their land inheritances, and they feel hopeless.

The children dream of a bright future for themselves, but the layering of their unique hardships on top of the significant poverty they live in makes that unlikely.

The children found the project to be transformative. The participatory action research methodology and opportunity to play enabled deep friendships to develop while the children learned about themselves, their mothers, and how to manage their identities and challenge intergenerational problems.

A number of the children’s rights have been violated and require redress. They should be active agents in processes of transitional justice.

Important recommendations:

  1. Documentation of children born into LRA captivity must continue and should include records of children who died.
  2. Broad community sensitisation initiatives must be implemented.
  3. The children must be appropriately engaged to identify needs and peer support activities such as this project should be expanded across the region.
  4. Mothers must be empowered with livelihood skills and grants.
  5. Fathers must be held accountable for support of their children.
  6. The government must support the children so they grow into productive citizens

Download this Field Note here (pdf): We Are All The Same – Experiences of children born into LRA captivity 2015-12-22

 

My Body, A Battlefield: Survivors’ Experiences of Conflict Sexual Violence in Koch Ongako

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My Body, a Battlefield: Survivors' Experiences of Conflict Sexual Violence in Koch Ongako
My Body, A Battlefield: Survivors’ Experiences of Conflict Sexual Violence in Koch Ongako

Sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV), especially in the context of protracted conflict, continues to be one of the least accounted for crimes in Uganda and the world. In January 2013, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) embarked on a process to document, through storytelling and other participatory methods, the experiences of conflict sexual violence that occurred during more than two decades of conflict between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Koch Ongako, a community in Gulu district, northern Uganda. The purpose of the exercise was to document and acknowledge these violations and their long-term consequences on the lives of male and female victims and the community in which they live, to help survivors come to terms with the past, and to inform policies and processes to provide redress and accountability. It is envisaged that this document shall inform and feed into national processes for transitional justice (TJ), both in terms substance and the participatory process used to engage victims.

Download this publication here: My Body, A Battlefield 2015-12-01(pdf)