Tag Archives: Women’s Advocacy Network

A place to call home

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Acen*, a child born into LRA captivity, is received home by her paternal family with prayer in September 2016. Benard Okot/Justice and Reconciliation Project.
Acen*, a child born into LRA captivity, is received home by her paternal family with prayer in September 2016. Benard Okot/Justice and Reconciliation Project.

Acen* is a fifteen year old girl who was born into LRA captivity. She has been living with her mother in Gulu since 2005 when her mother escaped with her as a young baby. Acen had asked her mother, Janet Aloyo*, several times about her father. Her mother told her that he had died in the bush, which meant that they could not locate his home. Acen is in secondary school and her mother finds it difficult to pay her school fees. Being a single mother, Aloyo also singlehandedly takes care of four other children she had after returning from captivity.

This year, the Women’s Advocacy Network, an association of women who have been affected by the LRA war, has partnered with JRP and Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice to help situations like these by facilitating family reunions and dialogues. Aloyo is one of several women who have now used the network successfully to trace the paternal homes of their children. Initially, she had started looking three months after she returned from captivity. A decade later, however, she had seen very little success. She told me there was only person whom she knew as a relative to the family of the father of her child was a woman, an aunt she used to talk to about taking her daughter home. But her efforts were frustrated when the Aunt died and she lost her only connection to the family.

“When she died I thought that was the end of everything,” Aloyo said.

She found it difficult to approach the family of her child because she was afraid that they may not listen to her or believe her. She also feared the family may be hostile to her since she knew many of the family members were killed by rebels during the war. She was worried that going to them to talk about their past would add more pain to them.

According to Aloyo, the network of women together with JRP made her see light at the end of tunnel by facilitating dialogues between her, her family and Acen’s father’s family.

This past September, at Acen’s father’s home, it all culminated on a sunny day when over thirty people were eagerly waiting to receive Acen, Aloyo and Aloyo’s family members. A team of theology students led by their pastor, who happened to be Acen’s uncle, was also present to grace the home for the coming of their daughter. Acen was welcomed with a prayer and smeared with anointing oil on her forehead as a symbol of her becoming a part of the family.

Aloyo was overwhelmed with the way she and her daughter were received. “Today, it is like I am giving birth to this girl again. My child has an identity and a place to belong,” she said proudly.

The family promised Acen support to see her through her education and to provide for her basic needs. Her mother was also promised land to use for farming. On the day, Acen assured her family that she would strive hard to complete her education.

It marked the beginning of relationship between the two families and Acen finally has a place to call home.

“I will take her as my own daughter and we will share the same food,” Acen’s uncle said during the event. “We will eat from the same table. When she is crying I will be also crying. If I am laughing she will laugh. The past has gone already, you are home. Be blessed and we love you so much.”

*Not their real names

Women trained on community theatre for advocacy

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Members of the Women's Advocacy Network's Rwot Lakica Women's Group pose with Jeff Korondo, 7 February 2014 in Gulu. Lindsay McClain Opiyo/Justice and Reconciliation Project.
Members of the Women’s Advocacy Network’s Rwot Lakica Women’s Group pose with Jeff Korondo, 7 February 2014 in Gulu. Lindsay McClain Opiyo/Justice and Reconciliation Project.

On 6th September 2016, 12 WAN group representatives from the six groups from Adjumani, Pader and Lira districts that are supported by the MacArthur Foundation project on ‘‘Redress for Sexual Gender Based Violence on Conflict Related Wrongs’’ will be trained on community theatre. The objective of the training is to strengthen survivor networks and prepare them on how to effectively use community theatre to address their challenges like the different aspects of revictimisation towards survivors of conflict SGBV.

The training will cover the importance of using theatre, theatre as a way of healing and reconciliation, developing skills for advocacy using theater, documentation of theatre processes, publicizing the theatre, planning, logistics and lobbying for support. Participants will also be trained on how to plan for community theatre performances and this will cover aspects of sharing and analyzing other’s stories, creating theatre performances, directing and rehearsing performances, mapping resources for the theatre activity, conducting theatre performances and evaluating performances.

It is hoped that the knowledge and skills gained will be utilized and demonstrated by the respective groups during the upcoming community dialogues in October 2016 to engage communities in preparation for their forthcoming outreach events in their respective communities viz, dialogues with the community and leaders.

Since theatre is a simple way of communicating sensitive and complicated issues in the community spaces, group members will   use songs, drama, art and poetry to communicate to communities what they have not been able to do using mere words.

Women training on how to plan for the future

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A member of Awee Ikoko Women's Group in Lira demonstrates to her group members how she plans to save money according to the Saving With a Purpose plan.
A member of Awe Ikoko Women’s Group in Lira demonstrates to her group members how she plans to save money according to the Saving With a Purpose plan.

A week ago the JRP team conducted financial management training in Aromo sub-county with members of Awe Ikoko Women’s Group one of the groups under the Women’s Advocacy Network housed by JRP. The objective of the training is to impact knowledge to victims of SGBV in five WAN groups to have increased agency to plan for their future, know about savings and credit options in their communities and to learn how to make a savining with a purpose to fund their income generating activities.

We also aim to ensure that the women understand the benefits of business planning and how to manage the performance of business planning as well as how to record manage performance of business through record keeping. The training we did in Aromo training focused on saving with a purpose, record keeping, investment decisions, planning for the unexpected.

The training was facilitated by an expert in the field of village and loan saving scheme (VSLA) who really used different approaches from lecturing to sharing of experiences and then group discussions where the participants expressed themselves to have understood what was taught. This was witnessed on how they were able to demonstrate individually their business plans and how they will be able to invest through saving with a purpose.

One woman said she will save 2,500 shillings every week for six months alongside the normal VSLA scheme to enable her buy a goat and then use the same procedure to acquire what she has not been able to acquire before.

Post-training

Post training the women of Awe Ikoko said they will put the knowledge gained into good use by planning well and investing in things where they are able to realize profits which was not the case before, keep record of their investments like farming, VSLA, Saving With a Purpose (called ‘SWAP’ for short) as others have always used their money to buy clothes.

The significance of this training is that the women will be able to share their knowledge with other women in the community. As a member of the group stated: “I will go and teach my daughters in law about the knowledge have acquired today, as this is very crucial to help plan for the future.”

A member said this knowledge is going to build their capacity as a group and individual members in their household which will ensure sustainability and independence of the group at one point in time.

Communities can provide for themselves if their capacities are built and trained basic concepts. Looking at the training, the women are hard working and are doing things like farming but they did not have the knowledge on how to invest in it and use proceeds to enable them get the basic needs in life which they have longed for.

Victoria Nyanjura is a Project Assistant with JRP’s Gender Justice department.

Reintegration of children born of war thanks to family reunions

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160812_family_reunification_in_uganda

The two-decade war in northern Uganda was characterised by various forms of sexual violence against women, such as rape, sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Many children were born as a result of these crimes, and this has had a profound effect on women. Now that a relative peace has returned to the region, one of the ongoing reintegration challenges is dealing with the identity of the children who were born in captivity or a result of sexual violence. Many of their patrilineal ties are unknown. But in Acholi culture, like in many areas in Uganda, a child’s identity is linked to his or her father. In addition, many of these children are now constantly asking their mothers and other family members about their identity and the whereabouts of their fathers.

The children find that not knowing their home is a painful aspect of their sense of identity. In Acholi culture, children are born into their paternal family and thus acquire the identity of that clan. Additionally, boys can expect to inherit land from their fathers in order to establish their own families. In Acholi culture, knowing one’s “home” (paternal village) is an integral component of social belonging, according to a Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) field note on children born in captivity (2015). Family members are part of the child’s well-being and therefore play an important role in reintegration. Family connections often provide comfort, key survival resources and a sense of belonging. This has made family reunions an important aspect of reintegration for children born in captivity and their mothers. Family reunions do not only help in reintegrating the children but also contribute to the reconciliation process in communities. Many families acknowledge that, according to cultural and social norms,children should know and have a relationship with their paternal lineage.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

According to research conducted since 2005 by JRP among women who were affected by war, the issue of children’s identity is an important justice issue. When the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) was formed in 2011, one of its objectives was to advocate the promotion and respect of the rights of children who were born during the war and/or born as a result of forced marriages involving women who had been abducted. Children’s identity was one of the issues that WAN raised in a petition to the Ugandan parliament in 2014. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1989, states that a child should be cared for by his or her parents and that children should preserve their identity, including family relations.

Reuniting children with their paternal or maternal relatives is a way to rebuild life and relations after conflict for both women and children. Some of the reasons that women give for the importance of reuniting children with their families include pressure from children who have grown up and want to know their relatives, access to land for children born of war, supporting children born in captivity to get to know their relatives and thus avoid incest in future, obtaining family support for children born of war and supporting children born of war have a sense of belonging and identity.

Challenges of the reunion process

The family reunions are not always easy to arrange. One peculiar challenge in the reunion process has been use of pseudonyms by commanders. In addition, people who were abducted often concealed their real identities in order to protect their families from retaliation by the LRA for alleged “mistakes” that they had made. This has made it difficult, in some instances, to locate the homes or relatives of the children.

Since 2011, WAN and JRP have reintegrated numerous children with their paternal and maternal families. From January to July of 2016 alone, nine children were reunited with their paternal families. This has enabled children and their mothers to rebuild their lives. Families have also been able to reconcile for the sake of the children.

Nancy Apiyo is a project officer in the Gender Justice Department of the Justice and Reconciliation Project.

This article was originally published on Let’s Talk, Uganda.

We Accept Our Own Blood: Reintegrating Children Born of War through Family Reunions

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In 2014 when members of the Women’s Advocacy Network petitioned the Ugandan Parliament for redress for harms caused by years of conflict in northern Uganda, the identity of children born war was a key issue they raised. The issue is not only important to mothers but to their children as well who find that not knowing their relatives is a painful void in their sense of identity.

During one of visit to a family, one mother, a member of WAN, told us: “My daughter kept on asking about her paternal relatives and I promised her I would get the home and grant her wish.”

Reuniting children born of war with their families, therefore, is in a way a form of redress since it contributes to rebuilding life and relations after the conflict.

In the past few years, the WAN has been approached by several women who were abducted, former commanders of the LRA, relatives of children born in captivity and survivors of sexual violence in camps to support them in mediation and tracing for the maternal or paternal families of the children. This year, its members with the support of JRP and Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice have conducted 10 dialogues and visits with families of children born of war. The objective has been to ensure mutual understanding of the reintegration process by both maternal and paternal families, reconcile families and ensuring acceptance of the children.

In some cases, lack of acceptance of children born of war in new marriages that their mothers are in has made mothers want to bring their children together with their paternal families. During one of the pre visits one of the mothers whose child had been suffering in her new marital home said, “My child is not wanted in my home.  She was bewitched and is now paralyzed.”

Children are also being reintegrated so that they can have access to land, have an identity and a sense of belonging as well as have family support. Some of the children have also now grown up and asking for whereabouts of their relatives.

In all the families where dialogues were carried out the idea of reintegrating children was welcomed. The children are also a source of closure in the families from the loss of their sons and daughters. During one of the dialogues a relative of a deceased former commander said, “… his children are his resurrection.”

The idea of children being a ‘resurrection’ of their dead parents was common in all the families that dialogues took place. A clan leader in one of the families said, “We want the child, he will stand on behalf of our lost child.”

Children are also accepted in respect and honor of dead relatives. A family member in one of the homes said, “We accept our own blood and cannot refuse them. Perhaps the spirit of the dead will haunt us if we don’t.”

Tracing of the homes of the children has been difficult due to challenges because in LRA captivity people often used fake names and concealed true information about their families. Sometimes there is also lack of support from relatives who fear that they might lose the bond they have with the children once they get to know their other relatives. This is especially common with maternal relatives and in laws.

Despite these challenges, this is an opportunity for children who want to to fully reintegrate in their communities through family reunions. This year we plan to help 12 children reintegrated in their families.

Cultural leaders and war-affected women develop action points to reintegrate children born of war

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Members of the Women's Advocacy Network present during a dialogue between war-affected women and cultural leaders on the reintegration of children born of war in northern Uganda, held in Gulu on 28 April 2016.
Members of the Women’s Advocacy Network present during a dialogue between war-affected women and cultural leaders on the reintegration of children born of war in northern Uganda, held in Gulu on 28 April 2016.

JRP and the WAN hold dialogue on reintegration of children born of war

GULU – Children born of war and their mothers still face challenges reintegrating into their communities and families in northern Uganda. This was the key message sent during a dialogue between cultural leaders and war-affected women organized by the Women and Advocacy Network and the Justice and Reconciliation Project on 28 April 2016 in Gulu.

The event, which brought together participants from Acholi, Lango, Teso and West Nile, offered a space for women survivors of conflict to share their experiences with representatives of cultural institutions from the Greater North.

The dialogue was punctuated by a presentation from the WAN members appealing to cultural leaders to help reintegrate children born of war into their communities.

Nighty, a member of the WAN, spoke about how when she returned home from the captivity of the LRA she discovered that a child of hers she had been separated from had been mistakenly placed in the home of another family on his return.

“I would like you, my elders, to help let my child come back home,” she asked the cultural leaders in attendance.

The WAN spoke at length about the difficulties they and their children are undergoing today. Many children are unable to trace their patrilineal lines and are consequently unable to access land and other life necessities that are linked to their fathers.

On their return home, some children have either not been reunited with their actual families or have been taken in by the wrong families. As explained by WAN Chairperson Evelyn Amony, this has partly been so because while in captivity their parents would have used fake names to protect their families back home. On return, this has created a problem for mothers, fathers and children eager to trace families that were separated.

Poverty also was cited as the biggest social problem facing children born of war and their children, with facilitating education and health care provision being very hard if not impossible. The issue of land is yet another problem, with children and their mothers landless due to stigma and poor community acceptance.

In attendance of the event was His Highness Drani Stephen Musali Izakare, the Lopirigo of Madi, who appealed to the cultural leaders present to address the issues that arose during the discussion.

“Culture is not static, [it] is dynamic and cultural change is inevitable and welcome where change is needed,” he said, “In Madi, there’s no right way to have a child because children are all of ours.”

At the close of the event, the WAN members and the cultural leaders in attendance worked together to come up with action points for how cultural institutions could be better involved in the reintegration of children born of war.

Some of the commitments generated during the group discussions included to hold clan meetings to create clan laws that would prohibit stigma within communities, integrating war-affected women and their children into cultural leadership at community level and collectively engaging the Ugandan government to address the issues raised.

The meeting was held as part of a JRP project aimed at ensuring the reintegration of children born of war through family reunions in partnership with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and the Women’s Advocacy Network.

By Benard Okot, with additional writing from Oryem Nyeko

2015 Women’s Advocacy Network Annual General Meeting asks “What is the future?”

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The second day of the Women's Advocacy Network 2015 Annual General Meeting, 18 November 2015.

As the year 2015 come to an end, more than 100 members of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) held their annual general meeting at Comboni Animation Centre from 17th to 18th November 2015 to review the year and discuss plans for 2016. The two day meeting was attended by members from all over northern Uganda to discuss the success and challenges of the WAN.

The meeting was guided by questions such as: what has been done? What has not been done yet? What needs to be done? What is the future of WAN?

The meeting began with an opening prayer by participant members from Can Rwede Pe Women’s Group. After this, the WAN chairperson listed the successes the WAN has achieved in 2015. These included opening a WAN bank account and medical services being secured for people with fragments of bullets still in their bodies. The WAN has alsoregistered in Gulu district as a community-based organisation (CBO), conducted child tracing and family reunification processes, and admitted three new groups from Adjumani, Pader and Lira districts.

The meeting informed participants about some of the pending tasks including following up on the petition WAN made to parliament in 2014, advocating to ensure the needs of war-affected women are considered in the PRDP 3, and also organising a meeting with the Office of the Prime Minister to make proposals for consideration of WAN members in government programmes.

However, challenges were also noted: a member from Rwot Lakica Women’s Group said that too much sunshine has affected their harvest which has affected the yield of  a livelihoods project being implemented by the WAN. Also the threat of physical violence during child tracing and lack of unity and cooperation among WAN group members has at times brought other challenges.

When asked what needs to be done to work effectively in 2016, a member of Okony Wa Women’s Group from Pader said that members should have unity, hard work, continuous lobbying and love for one another.

The WAN’s proposed plan for 2016 includes the groups contributing to the new WAN account through membership dues, proposals for funding being written, child tracing and family reunification continuing, sub-county officials being trained on gender-related issues affecting women, conducting group savings, holding exchange visits, as well as trainings on clerical skills for members.

In all, the AGM was a successful event that brought together more WAN members at one time than any other event. It contributed to exchange and learning among members and has set the foundation for an active and fruitful 2016 for the network.

Read more about the WAN here.

See pictures from the AGM on JRP’s Facebook page here.

Addressing the Unredressed – Gaps and opportunities for affirmative action for war-affected women within local government programmes and services in northern Uganda

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Policy Brief - Addressing the Unredressed Cover

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)

For Ugandan children born of war, the struggle continues

In the News,

By Samuel Okiror

http://www.irinnews.org/report/101721/for-ugandan-children-born-of-war-the-struggle-continues

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 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 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 was 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.”

 

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.

 

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 various groups, including some made up of mothers of CBW, 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.”

While parliament did pass a resolution, it has yet to bear fruit.

so/am

 

Acknowledging children born of war on the Day of the African Child

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On the International Day of the African Child, 16 June, special attention needs to be paid to children born of war.
On the International Day of the African Child, 16 June, special attention needs to be paid to children born of war.

Every June 16, African Union member states and their partners celebrate the International Day of the African Child (DAC) to renew efforts to improve the lives of children on the continent. In its petition presented to the Gulu District Local Government (GDLG) in August 2013, 73 members of the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) emphasized the challenges they are facing in caring for their children born in captivity (CBC) and of conflict-related rape. They called for comprehensive bursary packages for these children, training for teachers on how to best support these children, psychosocial support for the children, and changes in laws that require knowledge of paternal lineages. In response to this presentation, the GDLG supported the WAN in presenting a follow-up petition before the Parliament of Uganda in Kampala, which ultimately resulted in a resolution being passed by the Parliament on the plight of persons affected by the war in northern Uganda. Prayers 7 and 8 of the resolution call on Government to instate a regional mechanism to “identify, integrate and regularise stateless children born in captivity” and review laws that require information on the paternity of a child to disclosed.

Recognising the necessity to better understand the needs of these “children born of war” (CBW), a term we have adopted to refer to any child conceived as a result of conflict-related sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV), JRP set out last year to consult WAN members and their local leaders on the needs and challenges facing CBW and their mothers. Among 380 the WAN members who participated, we documented 437 children conceived out of an act of conflict SGBV against their mothers during the war, with 88% of the fathers believed to have been members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and 12% of the fathers believed to have been members of the State’s National Resistance Army (NRA) or Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF).

Major challenges facing CBW include: stigmatisation and rejection, trauma and behavioural challenges, inability to meet basic needs, identity, and access to land. Further, we learned that there are unique gender dimensions to the needs of CBW, with female CBW being more susceptible to sexual exploitation and abusive marriages, and male CBW being without resources for dowry and land to settle on once married. Both male and female CBW of school-going-age face challenges with school fees. Local leaders we spoke to reported being aware of CBW in their communities, but suggested lack of data is an obstacle to the development of programmes and policies that benefit them. There is a general belief among local leaders that CBW and their mothers access more existing programmes than they do in reality.

Today, in honor of the Day of the African Child, JRP has released a briefing on the consultation findings and recommendations, titled, Alone like a Tree: Reintegration Challenges Facing Children Born of War and Their Mothers in Northern Uganda. Key findings include:

  • More data is needed on the numbers and needs of CBW in order to inform interventions, especially at the sub-county-level.
  • There is need to better understand the challenges facing CBW from their own perspectives, and what the women and children’s justice and redress needs and expectations are.
  • Every stakeholder has a role to play in addressing the challenges raised.
  • CBW need counselling and social support, so they can come to terms with their complex identities.
  • The Government of Uganda (GoU) must prioritise support to CBW and their mothers through medical care, education, child- and family-tracing, land and housing, livelihoods, and by providing equal support to women as they provide to male ex-combatants.
  • The GoU must investigate allegations of corruption and nepotism, especially with regards to government programmes for vulnerable groups, such as CBW.
  • Fathers who are alive and known should be held accountable and provide child support.
  • More steps must be taken to involve men and the community in programmes that offer assistance to CBW and their mothers.
  • CBW and their mothers should be encouraged to seek unity and relief through groups and peer support.

The WAN and JRP encourage additional efforts by local and national government authorities to recognise CBC and other categories of CBW, such as children born of rape by state forces, and the development and implementation of measures to meet their needs and deliver redress and justice for the human rights violations they and their mothers have faced.

Read JRP’s situational brief on children born of war here.