This annual report outlines JRP’s accomplishments over the past year and highlights our commitments to bringing grassroots communities together to galvanise efforts for justice and human rights. It outlines key activities from the Community Documentation, Community Mobilization, Gender Justice and Communications departments and is a selection and general overview of our outputs and accomplishments in 2011.
To download the report, click here.
It is almost four years now that northern Uganda has experienced relative peace following the relocation of the LRA to DRC and CAR. The majority of the population that had hitherto been displaced into IDP camps have now returned to their homesteads and resumed life in the post-conflict phase. Apart from land conflicts which are still rampant, many people seem to have moved on with their lives despite the past violence and a large number of atrocities that were committed during the conflict. There have been few reports of revenge attacks by victims against ”alleged perpetrators.”
So is this an indicator that northern Uganda is quickly putting the past behind and moving forward? Maybe yes, maybe no.
To find out, the JRP Community Documentation department intends to carry out a northern Uganda transitional justice monitoring process.
The objective of the Transitional Justice Monitoring Survey is to track the progress of justice and reconciliation in northern Uganda. The first phase of the project will be focused on Gulu district. The results of this survey will be used in our advocacy efforts and policy recommendations to further the interests of the communities and victims of the conflict.
Using a quantitative survey, we will interview 598 households across all 23 sub-counties and 120 parishes in the district. Questions focus on issues such as missing persons, community dispute resolution, traditional justice, memorialization, reparations, security, and formerly-abducted persons.
In the coming weeks, we will release the findings of the pilot conducted in Gulu district, and in the coming months, results from other districts and sub-regions. Stay tuned!
“Ex-LRA abductees struggle to survive,” Daily Monitor, 7 April 2012
http://www.monitor.co.ug/SpecialReports/-/688342/1381202/-/item/0/-/nrtagaz/-/index.html
By Moses Akena
Eighteen years ago in an afternoon of May 1994, the then 10-year-old Evelyn Amony’s innocence and education was robbed off her after she was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels from her way home after classes at Atiak Pupwonya Primary School in Atiak Sub-county, Amuru District.
Now 28, Amony, who was in Primary Four when she was abducted, was taken with three children below 12 years old as was preferred by the rebels. She says she was immediately taken to Kilak hills (Kony’s base then) where she baby sat most of his children, including two she identified as Salim and Ali.
However, her group later left for Palutaka in Sudan in October of that year where she stayed at the home of the LRA leader, whom she said guarded her jealously. “While in Uganda, he used to tell me that he will not let any man touch me vowing to get for me a good man at the right time to marry,” she reminiscences.
Ironically, one day in 1997, it did not occur to her that he (Kony) was the ‘good man’.
Amony, who at the time was 15 years old, says she vehemently resisted advances by Kony because he was her father’s age mate.
What astonished her, Amony recalls, is the rebel leader telling her that she should blame her mother for bearing her with her beauty and for her being hardworking and tidy.
“I tried escaping that night from the camp but I couldn’t go far because the place is mountainous and I didn’t know that I was rotating within the same place,” she says.
Tried to escape
After spending the night in the bush, an LRA patrol team arrested her the next day and took her back to the camp. Here, she met and narrated her ordeal to the senior LRA commanders then; Otti Lagony and Vincent Otti. This could not stop the mandatory punishment of 50 strokes of the cane that such a case attracted.
“He (Kony) told them that he is the final man and immediately ordered me to go and prepare tea despite feeling pain on my buttocks from the beating,” she says. Amony later conceived and bore three children for Kony before her eventual escape in August 2005.
Now eight years after her return, Ms Amony bears no hallmark of the grandeur she anticipated.
Squeezed in a grass-thatched mud and wattle hut in Kirombe, a Gulu Municipality suburb, Amony, who has also married a former abductee, is struggling to take care of the three children and two others that she adopted.
“I have a challenge taking care of the three children because I don’t know their clan though I hear their father comes from Odek Sub-county,” the LRA victim adds.
Luckily, two of her eldest children (all girls) are being taken care of by their paternal uncle and are studying in a Kampala primary school .
Aryemo’s case
Amony’s dilemma is shared by 27-year-old Grace Aryemo, a mother of three, who shares a small grass- thatched hut with her three children in Laroo, three kilometres out of Gulu Town near Gulu University.
Rejected by her family in Lacekocot in Pader District and castigated together with her children by her aunt whom she was staying with for being an “evil person,” she found solace in crushing rocks at a stone quarry near her home.
Once in a while, she manages to crush a container of about 100kgs of which she gets about Shs2,000 a day. However, she says she has hardly got any money in the last one month, adding with a melancholic tone of how she and her children occasionally forgo food when there is no money.
For Amony, a trip back home to Atiak presents chilling memories because people in the area blame her group for the April 1995 incident in which more than 300 people were massacred by the LRA.
She says at worst, she only spends two days at home because it is only her father who is fond of her. She cannot dare ask her brothers for share of the family land.
Amony says the hostility extended to the children who are labeled ‘bush children’ might bring a similar problem in future.
Their concern is shared by hundreds of women, who at a tender age, were among more than 100,000 children abducted, coerced, and for the case of the girls, impregnated by senior LRA commanders.
Hundreds of children are believed to be in captivity of the LRA, most of them as child soldiers. The women, through their umbrella association, Women’s Advocacy Network, last week held a meeting in Gulu Town organised by several NGOs in the region.
They cited, in a memorandum read by Grace Acan, who was abducted from St. Mary’s College, Aboke, in 1996, denial of land and other property to them, stigma, and refusal to ask for forgiveness by their husbands, financial difficulty and favouritism of the male returnees as reasons for their concern.
They also say their family members and those of their husbands have rejected them and their children, accusing them of killing them while in the bush and carrying with them a curse.
Most of them after being rejected by their relatives and husbands have opted to rent houses near Gulu Town from where they have to live from hand to mouth.
Aryemo, for instance, makes beads at home which she sells to supplement what her husband, with whom she is yet to bear a child, gets from riding a boda boda motorcycle.
NGO’s work
Santo Okema, the programmes officer at Ker kwaro Acholi, a cultural organisation, responding to concerns raised by the women that they have been ignored by the cultural institution as has been the norm in the past, promised to raise their concerns at a meeting of traditional leaders.
Susan Blanch Alal, the programmes manager at World Vision Uganda Children of War Rehabilitation Programme, said more than 14,000 children have since benefited from their programme.
She added that the organisation came in to support former abductees and people affected by war after detecting challenges with their reintegration in the community.
“We have developed a proposal on how best to reintegrate the formerly abducted persons in the community and make their lives fruitful and peaceful with the other community members,” Alal says.
Mapenduzi Ojara, the district chairperson, says they are aware of the grievances of the women and promised to look for solutions through programmes like the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for northern Uganda.
Big struggle
He says recovery from war is a complex process that calls for a lot of commitment from the government and development partners who he says should design projects that are relevant to the women.
“What we are looking for now is to empower the women to access services and to also offer them psychosocial support,” Ojara says. The women are also particularly upset that some of the men who returned from captivity are enjoying more limelight than the women and have not taken any steps to take care of their children or ask for forgiveness.
“It’s painful that they took us to the bush, abused us, and impregnated us. They know they were our abductors and they don’t want to come and ask us for forgiveness,” Aryemo narrates.
For instance, in January, former LRA spokesperson, 50-year-old Sam Kolo graduated from Gulu University with a degree in Business Administration and immediately set his ambitions on getting a Master degree.
For Amony and the other women, their beauty still remains but the good life they dreamt of in childhood has been robbed off them and it is a struggle to rekindle it, something that they may realise much later in life and with little significance.
Our co-founder and advisor, Dr. Erin Baines, has written a response to the media phenomenon by Invisible Children, “Kony 2012.” (As many of you are aware, “Kony 2012,” is a short film by IC that has garnered more than 75 million views in less than a week.) Erin’s article, titled “#Ugandans 2012,” highlights the work of many local organizations in northern Uganda who have been working tirelessly for peace and justice for conflict-related atrocities.
Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to read similar articles that highlight local peacebuilders and their reactions to this latest campaign to put an end to LRA violence.
And as always, you can view all of our past publications on this site to learn more about the dimensions of the conflict and victims’ views on justice and reconciliation for northern Uganda and conflict-affected regions.
“More on Kony 2012,” The Daily What, 12 March 2012
http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/12/more-on-kony-2012/
JRP is referenced twice in this opinion piece on “Kony 2012” — “… in an effort to perpetuate “myths” about Kony…” and “…are desperately trying — peacefully, through reconciliation – to move away…”
Author Unknown
More On Kony 2012: If this past week has taught us anything, it’s that people love — love — being aware of things. More than that, they love telling other people that they are aware of things. Most of all, however, people are absolutely, unconditionally, head over heels in lifelong love with other people liking the fact that they are aware of things.
But why do people love being aware of things as much as they do? In a 2008 blog post, Stuff White People Like attempted to get to the core of the Western world’s codependent relationship with awareness. By raising awareness, wrote Christian Lander, ”you get all the benefits of helping (self satisfaction, telling other people), but no need for difficult decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize awareness?).”
Of course, what makes awareness so alluring is precisely what makes it so pointless: It doesn’t — in and of itself — actually accomplish anything.
Awareness, beyond argument, is the first step towards fixing a problem. But, invariably, that shared endorphin boost people experience when banding together to rally around awareness for a cause wears off, and all that’s left is a bunch of people with no answers looking around for someone — anyone — to take the next step.
And then someone does. And we pat them on the back for their willingness to put in the elbow grease and leg work necessary to actually get something done. And we happily sign their petitions or open our wallets to them: After all, it’s the least we can do to help this selfless do-gooder advance our cause beyond awareness. And we send them on their way, content in the thought that, if we couldn’t spare the time, at least we could spare a few dollars and a signature.
But what if that person, or that organization, we just bankrolled doesn’t understand the problem or what needs to be done about it? What if, instead of helping, their actions end up hurting not only the people they claim to want to help, but also the people who are actually helping? And, perhaps most importantly, what if the people supposedly being helped don’t want help? Should it still be foisted upon them against their will?
Take KONY 2012 for example.
A lot has been said over the last several days about Invisible Children‘s ultra-viral awareness campaign that targets infamous central African warlord Joseph Kony, and his 26-year-old rebel militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army.
IC’s finances have been called into question; their “emotional porn” approach toward awareness solicitation has been criticised as a “fund-raising stunt” which employs “blatant dishonesty” in an effort to perpetuate “myths” about Kony thereby achieving their stated goal of direct military intervention; the group’s leadership troika — seen above posing in 2008 with members of the then-child-soldier-recruiting Sudan People’s Liberation Army – has been referred to as self-promoting colonialists by the AP photographer who snapped the shot. But, through all the op-eds and the think pieces and the public polls, the only opinions worth heeding have remained largely invisible: Those of the people who are actually from there.
“[Invisible Children] are not known as a peace building organization and I do not think they have experience with peace building and conflict resolution methods,” wrote Anywar Ricky Richard, the director of the northern Ugandan organization Friends of Orphans, and a man who knows first-hand the horrors of the Lord’s Resistance Army, having been a former child soldier in its service. “I totally disagree with their approach of military action as a means to end this conflict.”
Ugandan-born activist TMS Ruge, co-founder of Project Diaspora, agrees wholeheartedly with Richard. Of KONY 2012 he says: “It is a slap in the face to so many of us who want to rise from the ashes of our tumultuous past and the noose of benevolent, paternalistic, aid-driven development memes.”
Indeed, in the rush to condescend to the central Africans who are “just not working hard enough” to get rid of Kony and his ilk and finally start improving their quality of life, what many overlook (or willfully ignore) is the already-visible progress that has been made thanks to the hard-earned grassroots efforts of central Africans themselves.
“Uganda was voted by Lonely Planet amongst the top destinations for 2012 but has this NGO just undone the potential for Uganda’s tourism?” asks Ida Horner, a Ugandan expat who remembers well a much harsher life under Idi Amin. “After all the tourism industry provides a real opportunity for Ugandans to work their way out of poverty through providing services that tourists want to consume.”
Nigerian-American novelist Teju Cole takes it a step further and slams what he calls the “White Savior Industrial Complex,” which cares little for the end, so long as it gets satisfaction from the means. “The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening,” says Cole. “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”
And all this before we’ve even touched on the dark heart of the matter: Joseph Kony.
Kony is, without a doubt, a despicable human being. His 25-year reign of terror has resulted in hundreds of deaths, thousands of abductions, and hundreds of thousands of displacements. But to suggest that Kony is anywhere near worthy of cheap, throwaway comparisons to such historical horror-mongers as Hitler is not only irresponsible, it might actually be what Kony wants.
IC’s video appears to suggest that Kony is currently in possession of over 30,000 child soldiers. According to the UN’s latest report, the LRA has “less than 500 combatants,” and was “dislodged” by Ugandan security forces in 2002 — meaning they are no longer there, and are unlikely to return.
Kony and the LRA are now but a horrible memory to many in northern Uganda who don’t need an Internet campaign to make Kony popular. They know all-too-well who he is and what he was once capable of, and are desperately trying — peacefully, through reconciliation – to move away from the shadows of their traumatic past.
“Now we have peace, people are back in their homes,” says Dr. Beatrice Mpora, who runs a community health organization in the rebels’ former northern Uganda stomping ground of Gulu. “They are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with.”
That is not to say that Kony is entirely done away with; he is still able to menace remote areas in neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic — his last known hideout. But rather than an ascending fuhrer, Kony is an aging monster, thrashing about blindly in hopes of remaining relevant for a little while longer.
Sadly, it seems IC’s KONY 2012 campaign may end up doing exactly what it aims to do: Provide a spent villain with a second wind of infamy.
“Most madmen love the idea of fame,” says Marc DuBois of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), “so Joseph Kony’s wet dream just came true.” By focusing all available attention on a bygone bogeyman whose days are numbered, the IC may be unwittingly rejuvenating the perception of Kony as an intimidating and influential force with a wider reach than his true resources allow.
“Making Kony ‘famous’ could make him stronger,” says well-respected Ugandan blogger Javie Ssozi. And that strength puts a lot of people in danger, including both locals and aid workers such as DuBois and colleague Avril Benoît. “MSF teams in LRA-affected regions of DR Congo, Central African Republic & South Sudan are likely wary of retaliation risks,” said Benoît.
IC, with its support for direct military intervention in Uganda, may not care that Uganda’s own government considers it “totally misleading to suggest that the war is still in Uganda,” but Kony does. To him, KONY 2012 represents a rebirth — a chance to restore a stifling grip that has been slipping for years.
So say KONY 2012 succeeds. America plants even more bootprints on the ground, smokes Kony out of his cave, and turns him over to the International Criminal Court. A job well done and stogies all around. Now there’s just the small matter of the fact that nothing has actually changed, because KONY 2012 doesn’t do a lick to address any of the big-picture problems currently facing central Africa.
All it has succeeded in doing is propping up Uganda’s war-crimes-perpetrating military and its brutal, corrupt, human-rights-abusing dictatorship, and strengthening the alliance of four-term-president Yoweri Museveni with his US counterpart at a time when a foothold in Uganda would be extremely advantageous to American oil interests.
Meanwhile, actual problems in need of actual solutions are being rendered inaudible by the beating of war drums.
Gulu, the Ugandan town ravaged by the LRA in a previous life is now home to the highest numbers of child prostitutes in Uganda, according to Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama. It also has unacceptably high rates of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, even when compared to the rest of Africa. And the real bane of Ugandan children — the mysterious “Nodding Disease,” which has killed scores and debilitated hundreds — is no closer to a cure.
“Last year I went to Gulu, Uganda, where Invisible Children is based, and interviewed over 50 locals,” writes Columbia University student Amber Ha in an open letter to IC’s Jason Russell. “Every single person questioned Invisible Children’s legitimacy and intention.”
Adam Branch, a human rights advocate who has worked for years in northern Uganda, elaborates on what precisely has given so many people in the area pause:
The warmongering, the self-indulgence, the commercialization, the reductive and one-sided story they tell, their portrayal of Africans as helpless children in need of rescue by white Americans, and the fact that civilians in Uganda and central Africa may have to pay a steep price in their own lives so that a lot of young Americans can feel good about themselves, and a few can make good money.
By now it should be abundantly clear that KONY 2012 doesn’t offer a single enduring solution to any of the problems it pretends to want to fix. At the very least, it makes things worse. At the very most, it makes things much worse.
But beyond the reasons why lies a simple truth: Lasting change — the kind that makes people’s lives truly better — doesn’t come from awareness, or even from doing something: It comes from doing what needs to be done. And knowing what that is requires paying attention, listening to the victims, and understanding the whole story.
You’ll notice that I haven’t once mentioned money. There is plenty to say about IC’s accountability and transparency (or lack thereof) and the way it goes about spending the piles of cash it is making off KONY 2012 — and piles of cash are definitely being made considering the ubiquitous ”sold out” heraldic standards that popped up almost instantaneously next to the all-important “awareness swag” IC is hawking in conjunction with the video campaign — but that discussion is mostly moot.
IC is not a charity in the true sense of the word. It is a private interest group that allocates the overwhelming majority of its budget (nearly 70% in 2011) toward travel, compensation, administration, fundraising, making movies, and lobbying celebrities and congress [pdf] to support its central aim: Direct foreign military intervention in Africa.
Whether or not that is what IC should be spending its money on is a question best left to IC. The real question that you should be asking yourself is whether or not that is what you should be spending your money on.
It should be well-evident by now that KONY 2012 is a poorly thought-out and oversimplified campaign with shortsighted objectives that are detrimental to every relevant cause except making money. More than that, it is a campaign that is unwelcome by local civilians, politicians, experts, and humanitarian aid workers.
Asked about the video’s glossing over major aspects of regional history and culture, IC co-founder, and the star of KONY 2012, Jason Russell told the New York Times, “No one wants a boring documentary on Africa. Maybe we have to make it pop, and we have to make it cool. We view ourself as the Pixar of human rights stories.”
That’s great, except Africa is not a feel-good animated feature for the whole family. It is a real place with real people who would suffer real consequences if KONY 2012 succeeded in convincing well-meaning individuals that all it needs for a happy ending is to catch the “bad guy” with the help of American soldiers.
Africans deserve better than to be treated like two-dimensional Wacom sketches by a group of sensationalist jet-setters who — by their own admission — oversimplify the issues to sell their cause (and their bracelets). The people of Africa — nay, the people of everywhere — deserve real, long-lasting solutions; not quick-fix half-remedies that look good on Facebook.
There are plenty of ways to help without trampling all over self-determination. There are good, honest, transparent not-for-profits based in Africa that have been working for years to promote self-sufficiency through education, health services, rehabilitation, democracy-building initiatives, and myriad other programs that have resulted in empowering change. These organizations help the people help themselves without condescension or remote imperatives.
But don’t take my word for it: Do the research. Find a cause you support and make sure it is what it says it is, and, more importantly, that it helps the people it claims to help. Invisible Children and KONY 2012 do not meet that criterion, and for that reason, above all other reasons presented here and elsewhere, it should not be allowed to speak on their behalf.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our latest publication, a field note titled, The Day They Came: Recounting the LRA’s Invasion of Teso Sub-region through Obalanga Sub-county in 2003.
To read the full report, please click here.
Our team will be launching this publication in Amuria town on Tuesday, March 13th at CV Villa beginning at 9:30am, and at the Obalanga sub-county headquarters at 1:30pm on Wednesday, March 14th.
A radio talk show will be held on Etop Radio from 7pm to 8pm on March 13th. The public is invited to attend either of the launches or tune into the radio programme.
“Uganda: How you can help,” Washington Post, 9 March 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/uganda-how-you-can-help/2012/03/09/gIQANxuE1R_blog.html
By Elizabeth Flock
Whether or not you support the very viral Kony 2012 campaign created by the charity Invisible Children, Joseph Kony and the child-recruiting Lord’s Resistance Army he leads are undeniably brutal. Uganda, where the LRA has long operated, has been ravaged by conflict for decades.
Villagers sit in the back of a Ugandan army truck as they are moved to a safe area from the site of a massacre carried out by the Lords Resistance Army in 2004. (KAREL PRINSLOO – AP) The country suffered grave atrocities under the dictatorial regime of Idi Amin in the 1970s. Since the LRA, a violent religious and military group, began operations in Uganda in 1987, it has abducted and forced about 66,000 children in the country to fight with them, according to the World Bank. Nearly 90 percent of the region’s population has been forced to leave their homes. And while the LRA has weakened in recent years, Uganda, with a population of 32 million, continues to suffer from serious human rights problems. A U.S. State Department report in 2010 gave a chilling list of abuses, including arbitrary and vigilante killings, trafficking in persons, sexual abuse of children and the ritual killing of children. It is worth reading the entire list here.
Since BlogPost began covering the Kony 2012 campaign Wednesday, many readers have expressed in e-mails or in the comments that they would like to better know how to help Uganda. Below, we have rounded up a partial list of the many groups doing aid work in the country. Some of these charities have ratings or reviews on Charity Navigator or Great Nonprofits to help you make a choice; others do not. The Web site for Invisible Children is here, or watch their film first below:
Oxfam Uganda
Oxfam, an international oganization that works to fight poverty and injustice, focuses in Uganda on supporting people affected by conflict, lobbying for peace and working to better livelihoods, especially in the north. View its Web site here.
The International Rescue Committee Uganda
The IRC works internationally to help people rebuild after humanitarian crises. In Uganda, where the IRC has been since 1998, the committee works to protect women and children from violence and encourages education, peace and development. It also helps small farmers and businesses. View its Web site here.
BRAC
BRAC says it is the largest NGO operating in Uganda, and has been in the country since 2006. Its focus areas are health and education, women and girl empowerment, and microfinance for the poor. BRAC claims to have reached more than 2 million Ugandans, and says 10,800 students have graduated from its schools, which operate in post-conflict zones in the north. View its Web site here.
The Refugee Law Project (RLP)
The RLP works to ensure human rights for asylum seekers, refugees, and internally displaced persons in Uganda. It offers legal aid as well as counseling, clinical and mental health services. View its Web site here.
Grassroots Reconciliation Group (GRG)
GRG works in northern Uganda to rehabilitate former child soldiers and help reconcile them with their communities. The group says it has assisted 525 former child soldiers and their communities on micro-finance, counseling, and livelihood projects such as agriculture and goat-rearing. View its web site here.
African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET)
AYINET provides physical and psychosocial care and rehabilitation in the Uganda’s war-affected northern region. It specifically works to support victims of brutalities suffered at the hands of the LRA, through medical rehabilitation or the promotion of youth leaders who will work for peace and justice. View its Web site here.
Christian Counseling Fellowship (CCF Pader)
CCF is a community-based organization in Pader, northern Uganda. Its goal is to promote Christian values and provide education, child protection, health care and livelihood opportunities to war-affected women and children.View its Web site here.
Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP)
JRP, in Gulu, northern Uganda since 2005, works to empower war-affected communities by getting them to participate in the processes of justice, healing and reconciliation, and involving them in research and advocacy. View its Web site here.
Gulu Support the Children Organisation (GUSCO)
GUSCO is an indigenous NGO that works to promote the well-being of conflict-affected children in the north. It provides psycho-social support, capacity building of communities, education, advocacy and peace-building. View its Web site here.
St. Mary’s Lacor Hosptial
The hospital, founded in 1959 by Catholic missionaries, says it provides diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive medicine services for more than 300,000 patients annually, half of whom are children younger than 6. View its Web site here.
Caritas Uganda
Caritas Uganda provides access to food as well as initiatives for democracy-building, gender equality and HIV/AIDS eradication. View its Web site here.
When the guns go silent, everything might seem peaceful, but for the victims of gross violations, the wounds still fester.
Many violations in northern Uganda conflict were perpetrated on the basis of gender. For instance, women and girls, boys and men were subjected to sexual violence and sexual slavery in various forms. Both men and women were raped with impunity. Young girls were abducted and forced into ‘marriage,’ unwanted pregnancies, sexual slavery and labor against their own will. Women and girls in the former IDP camps suffered rape and defilement by rebels and government soldiers. Oftentimes, this violence was perpetrated to torture the victims physically, psychologically and socially, and the impacts are horrifying.
Experiencing these violations has left open wounds in the hearts of the victims, who are pleading for healing and closure. After experiencing such abuses, many victims have not received adequate psychological, social or physical rehabilitation in order to live a comfortable life in the communities. Others are forced to come face-to-face with abusers who have never acknowledged wrong-doing, which constantly reminds survivors of the harms they suffered. More so, gender roles have changed because of the conflict and mass displacement, a challenge the returned communities are grappling with and which often fuels domestic violence in the homes.
What then should be done to address the plight of these victims?
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights notes that, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Yet, most of these violations inflicted on civilian populace were aimed at torturing, dehumanizing and punishing with no reason. What does it mean for a man to be raped by a fellow man? It is not ‘done for fun,’ but to degrade him. Consequently, this has led to depression and suicidal tendencies in many survivors. How well can we design our justice policies and programmes to suit the gender specific needs of victims, such as those of Tek gungu (male rape)? Many times when we talk of rape, people assume we are only talking about women. Such limiting runs the risk of excluding certain victims from post-conflict debates.
With these few notes, I would like to call upon different transitional justice stakeholders and all working in post-conflict societies such as northern Uganda to ensure that policies and programmes take into account the gendered nature of violations that occur in conflict in order to deliver gender justice to the victims of such abuses. It’s important that a response is proportionate and relevant to the degree of harm suffered by the victim, particularly those harms perpetrated by the fact that they were women or men, young girls or young boys. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestion on how gender could be incorporated into policy debates or post-conflict programmes such as reparations, traditional justice or accountability for violations.
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let’s remember our brothers and sisters who are living with open wounds and seeking for justice, healing and closure after experiencing sexual and gender-based violence.
-Ketty Anyeko
JRP Gender Justice Team Leader
kanyeko[at]justiceandreconciliation.com
This year, as we join the world in celebration of International Women’s Day, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) wishes to emphasize the unique peace, justice and reconciliation challenges faces women survivors of armed conflict. In line with this year’s theme, “Connecting girls, inspiring futures,” a member of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)—a JRP-supported forum for conflict-affected women to undertake gender justice advocacy—has prepared a poem that highlights some of the issues facing formerly-abducted women and the need for stakeholders and communities to listen to women’s calls for justice.
To view the poem, titled “Oduru” or alarm, click here.
Members of the WAN will be performing the poem at today’s district celebrations in Gulu. Pictures are coming soon!
Oduru (Alarm)
A Poem by the Women’s Advocacy Network for International Women’s Day 2012
PDF
This year, as we join the world in celebration of International Women’s Day, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) wishes to emphasize the unique peace, justice and reconciliation challenges faces women survivors of armed conflict. In line with this year’s theme, “Connecting girls, inspiring futures,” a member of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)—a JRP-supported forum for conflict-affected women to undertake gender justice advocacy—has prepared a poem that highlights some of the issues facing formerly-abducted women and the need for stakeholders and communities to listen to women’s calls for justice.
Wululu Wululu Wululu
Lutuwa oduru yang ka okok lwak ringo kama oduru okok iye do
Piny dong oto
Piny dong oto ada
Wa lworo piny calo lee tim malworo got
Wa lworo piny kwe
Wa lworo Wa lworo Wa lworo
Oduru ki wango doo
Oduru pek
Oduru lit
Oduru longo
Aneno tungi ki tungi
Mutu piny mede ameda
Gwoko ajula dong odoko tek
Lutino ma pe wa yube pire
Anyim gi tika bibedo tye
Anyim gi binen awene
Lweny Lweny Lweny
Lweny, kono yang wangeyo gang pa meni kono ber
Kadi obed kumeno kwo pud yube
Wun lwak wun gamente, wun NGOs, wun lutela wa
Wucung kwed wa
Wu pee cing wa
Wuwiny koko wa
Wulok kwed wa
Mon obedo guti
Wu nyut it wa maa
Wek wabed calo dano adana
Wek anyim wa obed maleng
Wawek tim alany
Wek oduru ogik koko
Poem Explanation by the Authors
The poem was written by members of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN). Cognizant that the war in northern Uganda affected us, the war-affected women, in various ways, we are calling for justice, healing and reconciliation.
In this poem, we note the ongoing challenges we face, such as the quest for reparations and other forms of redress from various stakeholders, which we compare to a wild animal wondering about the mountains. We also note the challenges in raising children we were not prepared to have (children born in captivity, ajula), whose futures are blurred and who lack basic needs, a cultural identity and access to land.
The poem’s title, Oduru, means raising an alarm. In the past when one would hear a person alarming, he or she would know there was a problem and in turn run to the source of the cry. In this context, we believe that what befell us during the war merits attention, and we hope in hearing our calls you too will run to our side.
As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2012, we call upon stakeholders to respond to our cries for justice, healing and reconciliation for ourselves and our children. Despite the challenges we face, we are hopeful that our futures and that of our children can be bright if you listen and respond to our oduru.
About WAN
The Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) is a forum for war-affected women to advocate for justice, acknowledgment and accountability for gender-based violations inflicted during war. It was formed in May 2011 with support from JRP and aims to empower women survivors to participate in post-conflict policy debates in Uganda and to engage grassroots communities in gendered discussions on reintegration and reconciliation. The WAN currently comprises of 9 women’s groups from Acholi sub-regions, with plans to expand to Teso, West Nile and Lango in 2012. The WAN meets quarterly to discuss common issues, including the need for compensation and other forms of reparation, the rights of children born of forced marriage in LRA captivity and strategies to end social stigma by communities.
About JRP
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. To learn more about JRP’s work, please visit www.justiceandreconciliation.com. For comments related to this poem, please email info@justiceandreconciliation.com.