This special issue of Voices looks back at the past 10 years of transition, justice and reconciliation in northern Uganda and at the Justice and Reconciliation Project.
Articles include features from members of the Lukodi Massacre Memorial Association, the Mukura Memorial Development Initiative and JRP.
Download this issue here: Voices, Issue 10, November 2015 (pdf)
On 15 September 2015, the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) at the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) convened a round-table meeting between 24 local government officials and 16 WAN members. The purpose of the meeting was to explore opportunities for war-affected women to benefit from existing and proposed government programmes as an interim avenue for redress for conflict-related wrongs they experienced during northern Uganda’s longstanding conflicts. The meeting was attended by sub-county chiefs, community development officers (CDOs), district community development officers (DCDOs), chief administrative officers (CAOs) and district speakers from Adjumani district in the West Nile sub-region; Gulu, Amuru, Pader and Nwoya districts in Acholi sub-region; and Lira district in Lango sub-region.
The meeting was supported with funding from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), through a grant from the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women as well as the Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE), Kampala. The objectives of the meeting were to share findings of a recent needs assessment survey conducted by JRP; to explore opportunities for war-affected women under current and proposed government programmes; and to facilitate discussion between war-affected women and their leaders on matters of justice, reconciliation and redress.
This policy brief draws upon the discussions and recommendations that emerged from the meeting and seeks to inform local governments across Uganda on the avenues through which they can work within their existing mandates to better meet the unredressed justice needs of war-affected women through targeted development assistance. It is divided into four sections: a background on transitional justice (TJ) including the major development programmes in the country, conflict sexual violence and the advocacy of the WAN at JRP; the needs and challenges facing war-affected women in northern Uganda; gaps, challenges and opportunities for local governments in meeting these needs and challenges; and practical recommendations for local and national government officials, war-affected women and civil society organisations.
Read the full policy brief here: Policy Brief – Addressing the Unredressed (PDF)
Welcome to this issue of JRP’s newsletter. This month we highlight work JRP’s Gender Justice and Community Mobilisation departments have been doing, including the results of research on the reintegration challenges of children born of war in northern Uganda and reconciliation initiatives in Acholi and Lango sub-regions.
Since 2012, JRP’s Voices magazine has shared victim-centred views on justice and reconciliation in northern Uganda. The magazine accommodates varied views on transitional justice, peacemaking and post-conflict with issues presenting views on reparations, truth-telling, accountability and more. This month, we are launching the new face of Voices at its own website: http://voices.justiceandreconciliation.com.
You can read all older articles as well as newer articles under the Community Voices, Opinion and News sections. For submission guides and instructions on how you can contribute, contact Oryem Nyeko at onyeko@justiceandreconciliation.com.
Also, follow Voices’ twitter feed here.
‘Children born of war’ are children that were conceived as a result of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. These include children born in captivity and children born of war-related rape or defilement. On 16 June, the International Day of the African Child, JRP launched a situational brief presenting the findings of research into the reintegration challenges of these children and their mothers in northern Uganda. The brief, titled ‘Alone Like a Tree: Reintegration Challenges Facing Children Born of War and Their Mothers in Northern Uganda’, is the result of consultations held with children born of war in Lango, Acholi and West Nile sub-regions of Uganda.
Alone Like a Tree also presents recommendations for stakeholders and government to take steps to address the issues identified.
Read the brief here.
This year, the Justice and Reconciliation Project is implementing an initiative titled ‘Across Regional Boundaries: Promoting Regional Reconciliation in Acholi and Lango Sub-Regions’ with support from USAID-SAFE. The project aims to promote community conflict memory and foster reconciliation at community and regional level through community-based peace structures, dialogues and training.
Read blogs and find out more about this initiative here.
Every newsletter, we’ll be profiling a member of JRP’s team. This month, Patrick Odong, our Programme Driver and Logistics Assistant is our subject.
Patrick does a lot at the Justice and Reconciliation Project: he drives its vehicles, serves as a member of its procurement committee helping with procurement of office assets and equipment, and administers JRP’s asset registry. In addition to all of this, he also helps in coordinating transport at JRP. It was this diversity that has kept him working with JRP since he joined in May 2006 as a driver.
Patrick comes from a family with a rich history of human rights advocacy – including his father who was a human rights activist – which is something that was a contributing factor to his with adapting to the organization. Witnessing JRP’s work first-hand, he says, allowed him to learn about vulnerable people on the outskirts of Gulu as well as “the flow of justice.”
“JRP was [an] organisation that worked with grassroots people so that their problems were heard.”
A highlight of his time at JRP was the exposure JRP had when a petition by the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) was presented to the Ugandan Parliament. “That was a real fight,” says Patrick.
Other highlights were JRP’s publication of the field notes on massacres in places like Burcoro, Atiak and Lukodi: “To be the first to come out with such things means something.”
Patrick has a certificate of defensive driving from Uganda Police in conjunction with Acholi Private Sector and has driving experience with NGOs for 15 years. He also has experience a teacher by profession and studied education at Gulu Core Teachers College and taught in Laroo Adra P7 school which specializes teaching deaf children. He also ran a family business and worked in the Ugandan military during the insurgency as a driver.
As an addition to Patrick’s diverse experience, Patrick has enjoyed the fact that working at JRP has allowed him to develop other skills. “Having come in as a driver I was given access to other opportunities – like communications skills.”
Patrick wants to see the women JRP works with have justice in the future. He wants to live in a peaceful environment. What is Patrick’s goal for the future? “My goal is having peace.”
Photo: Giving women’s group in Barlonyo tips on how to use herbicides consignment in 2015.
Acholi Pii Massacre, 4 July 1996
Mukura Massacre, 11 July 1989
Mucwini Massacre, 22 July 2002
Namokora Massacre, 16 August 1986
See the rest of JRP’s Peace and Conflict Calendar here.
Thank you for reading this update! Continue to connect with us on our LinkedIn page. Also, remember to visit our website for our latest blogs and updates on transitional justice developments in northern Uganda and Africa’s Great Lakes region. You can also participate in the discussions on our Facebook page and on our twitter profile!
Report on Community Dialogues Conducted in Koch Goma Sub-County (Acholi Sub-Region), Abia Sub-County (Lango Sub-Region), Obalanga Sub-County (Teso Sub-Region) and Romogi Sub-County (West Nile Sub-Region) to Gather Grassroots Perspectives on Amnesty in Uganda
From the 7 – 29 October 2014, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) on behalf of the Uganda Law Society (ULS) conducted four community dialogues in the sub-regions of Acholi, Lango, Teso and West Nile in northern Uganda to solicit grassroots perspectives on Uganda’s Amnesty Act of 2000. The dialogues were conducted as part of a wider research project being implemented by the Uganda Law Society to inform the drafting of a future Model Amnesty Law for Uganda. This report provides a summary of the views and perspectives gathered from these dialogues. Detailed transcriptions of the dialogues are also attached as annexes.
Download this report here (pdf).
Women in northern Uganda suffered various forms of conflict-related sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) during the region’s longstanding armed conflicts. These have resulted in ongoing forms of re-victimisation, including those associated with the lasting effects of bearing and caring for children born as a result of conflict sexual violence, what this briefing terms “children born of war” (CBW). Unfortunately, acknowledgment and redress for CBW and their mothers is largely lacking in the transitional justice (TJ) in Uganda.
The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), a Ugandan non-governmental organisation that works for justice and reconciliation with grassroots communities, conducted a consultation with conflict-affected women and local leaders from September to October 2014. This was done in an effort to identify emerging needs and challenges facing CBW and their mothers so that policies and programmes can be developed and implemented to meet and address these needs. The consultation sought the views of more than 447 people and found that stigmatisation, rejection, trauma, behavioural challenges, meeting basic needs, identity and access to land continue to be major challenges facing CBW that are likely to only intensify as these children come of age.
Organised into eight sections, the briefing provides an introduction and methodological overview, background on CBW and TJ in Uganda, analysis of numbers and key challenges according to mothers of CBW and local leaders, and recommendations for the Government of Uganda and other stakeholders on what is needed to address these challenges and provide meaningful redress to CBW and their mothers.
To read the full situational brief, please read: Alone Like A Tree Reintegration Challenges Facing Children Born of War and Their Mothers in Northern Uganda (Pdf)
Following the transfer of Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Justice and Reconciliation Project sought the views of communities tied to Ongwen’s case at the ICC. The result is a situational brief presenting theirs and civil society members in Gulu’s opinions on Dominic Ongwen and recommendations for international justice.
Read the full situational brief here (pdf): Community Perceptions on Dominic Ongwen
The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) works to understand and explain the interests of individuals, groups and communities affected by conflict. Since 2005, JRP has made key policy recommendations to the civil society and government actors regarding the provision of victim-sensitive reparative measures in northern Uganda, based on research and interaction with victims of conflict, policy makers and other key transitional justice stakeholder. This policy brief seeks to explore how distributive justice and reparations can serve children that were forcibly recruited into the LRA. It is based on the findings of 17 semi-structured key informant interviews conducted in Kampala, Kitgum and Gulu in Uganda. The organisations which were represented by the interviewees included a mix of local, national and international organisations from the fields of children’s rights and transitional justice3 as well as two young people who were formerly associated with the LRA.
Read this full Policy Brief here: Distributive justice (pdf)
In its efforts to document the voices of the victims of the conflict in northern Uganda, based on the belief that through facilitating communities to tell their stories in their own terms and words not only helps to bring some relief to the victims but also contributes to better inform transitional justice processes, the Justice and Reconciliation Project launches this field note as a first step to acknowledge what happened in Odek sub-county. The purpose of this report is twofold. First, it seeks to make visible the atrocities committed by the NRA and the LRA in Odek and how it affected the lives of individuals and the community as a whole. Second, it aims to show how Odek is silently fighting another war; the war that comes with stigmatisation and exclusion. This report shows how the impact of the war continues to affect the daily lives of the people of Odek, and undermines its prospects of achieving lasting peace and reconciliation.
Read this entire report here: Forgotten Victims (pdf)
The Justice and Reconciliation Project’s 2014 Annual Report presents the organisation’s activities and their impact in 2014 under four objectives derived from JRP’s 2010-2014 five year strategic plan. Read how the memory of conflict affect communities was preserved, communities were mobilised to engage in peacebuilding processes, vulnerable groups were supported in their pursuit of justice and victim-centred transitional justice was advocated for this year.
Download: 2014 Annual Report (pdf)
This baseline study seeks to determine the extent to which revictimisation affects female survivors of conflict sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) in northern Uganda. The information gathered will inform the Justice and Reconciliation Project’s (JRP) project, “Redress for Sexual- and Gender-Based Violence on Conflict-Related Wrongs” which aims to support transitional justice (TJ) efforts of female survivors of SGBV in the northern Ugandan districts of Adjumani, Pader and Lira, and the project of our partners under a consortium funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In addition, we intend for these findings to inform the work of the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) of the Government of Uganda (GoU), as they establish a national TJ policy to provide remedy and redress for victims of Uganda’s many longstanding armed conflicts. The baseline operated under a simple, yet alarming observation, based on JRP’s years of working with conflict victims: war-affected women are continuously targeted for sexual- and gender-based crimes.
In this summary, we provide an overview of the methodology and conceptual frameworks that were used in developing this baseline, as well as the key findings and conclusions that emerged.
Read the report here: Establishing the Extent of SGBV Revictimisation among Female Survivors of Conflict SGBV in Northern Uganda (pdf)