Executive Summary
Since the late 1980s, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a spiritualist rebel group with no clear political agenda, has abducted tens of thousands of children and adults to serve as porters and soldiers. Rebel commanders have forced girls, some as young as 12 years old, to serve as sexual and domestic servants (1) and forced their fighters to inflict horrific injuries by cutting off the ears, noses, lips, and limbs of defenseless civilians. Experience of forced conscription into the LRA is traumatic and varies in scope and intensity. Children and youth - some as young as 7 and 8 years old - have been forced to mutilate and kill civilians, including members of their own families and communities. At the same time, the Ugandan government and the international community have failed to protect civilians from abductions and other assaults in northern Uganda.
In the early 1990s, children who escaped from the LRA or were captured by Ugandan soldiers were often paraded in the streets in the hope that someone would identify them. This treatment prompted a group of parents of abducted children to establish the Gulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO), a reception center in Gulu, in 1994. More than 20,000 children and youth have since passed through GUSCO and other reception centers throughout northern Uganda. However, this number does not account for the thousands of children and youth who do not pass through a reception center.(2)
A special Child Protection Unit of the Ugandan People's Army (UPDF) was established to routinely deliver to the reception centers children and youth who have been captured in gun battles or escaped from the LRA. Upon arrival, the children are given a medical exam and treated for diseases and other ailments. Those suffering from war wounds are sent to hospitals in Gulu and Kampala. Housed in separate units, boys and girls usually spend the day together undertaking a range of activities, including counseling, song and dance, sports, and vocational training. Most children and youth stay at the centers for 2 to 6 weeks. Child mothers generally stay longer, often up to 6 months or more. During this time, staff members attempt to trace the whereabouts of a child's parents or relatives. Some centers maintain a "meeting room" where parents or relatives can meet with a child, often accompanied by a social worker to prepare the family and child for their eventual reintegration. Children are eventually provided with a resettlement package and sent back to live with their families.
Since 2006 security has vastly improved in northern Uganda, thanks to a decrease in fighting between the LRA and the Ugandan army and on-going peace talks. Possibly as a result, there are few, if any, former LRA abductees staying at reception centers as of April 2007. Even so, an estimated 1,000-3,000 children and youth still fill the ranks of the LRA. (3)
In December 2005, the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative on Vulnerable Populations launched The Database Project to better document abduction and help improve the capacity of 8 reception centers in the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Apac, and Lira to collect and analyze information about former LRA abductees. At the time, these centers were still providing housing and care to hundreds of children and youth. The objectives of the project were:
1. to improve the data-management capacity of all reception centers;
2. to digitize all reception center data;
3. to measure and analyze the overall incidence of abduction based on those data;
4. to assess characteristics associated with abduction; and
5. to provide recommendations aimed at improving the process of reintegrating former LRA abductees into their communities.
These are the main findings and recommendations from the research:
1. Former LRA abductees can be distinguished by subgroup based on gender, length of abduction, experience, and exposure to violence. Programs aimed at providing psychosocial assistance to former abductees and helping them reintegrate into their communities should be mindful of these characteristics. In general, more programs need to be developed to provide all children and youth in northern Uganda, including former abductees, with educational opportunities, vocational training, meaningful jobs, and leadership training.
- The majority of former abductees (61%) were 10 to 18 years old when they arrived at the reception centers. The mean age of females was 16 years old (S.D. 7.0), and the median 15. The mean age of males was 20 years old (S.D. 8.6), and the median 17.
- Girls and women represent 24 percent of the former LRA abductees registered at the 8 reception centers included in the survey. Females stayed longer with the LRA than males. Young women between the ages of 19 and 30 tended to stay longer with the LRA, averaging 4.5 years. Three factors may explain why women 19 to 30 years old stayed with the LRA for long periods of time. First, the LRA abducts girls and women to serve as long-term sexual partners and domestic servants to commanders. Fourteen percent of females who passed through a reception center in the district of Apac self-reported that they had been "given" to commanders and 10 percent reported giving birth while in captivity. Second, women forced to serve as "wives" are likely to be kept in encampments and villages located some distance from combat zones, offering less opportunity to escape, surrender, or to be captured by army troops. Finally, women who have babies while in captivity may fear trying to escape or simply chose not to leave the rebel group.
- LRA abductees have suffered a wide range of abuses during their captivity. Information about these abuses is contained in data collected at three of the eight reception centers. At the same time, it must be recognized that many - if not most - of the young people and children of northern Uganda have been affected in some way by the violence in northern Uganda, including displacement, loss of family members, witnessing horrific events, and lack of access to health care, education, and other services.(4) Indeed, a disproportionate amount of attention has been paid to former LRA abductees in the form of media attention, "resettlement packages," and direct cash aid to returnees and their families. This situation has caused resentment in some communities (5) and diverted the focus away from the general situation of children and youth in northern Uganda. Rather than creating a set of general services for formerly abducted people (e.g. resettlement packages), emphasis should be placed on integrated, community-based programs that invest in youth and children in northern Uganda, including those who were never abducted. More programs need to be developed to provide children and youth with educational opportunities, vocational training, meaningful jobs, and leadership training.(6) At the same time, a targeted response should address specific needs of subgroups of abducted people, including reintegration and psychological support services.
2. Estimates of the number of LRA abductions are higher than previously suggested, and the whereabouts of most abducted people remains unknown. By triangulating data from different sources on the number of former abductees, we estimate that the LRA has abducted 24,000 to 38,000 children and 28,000 to 37,000 adults as of April 2006.(7) Moreover, the whereabouts of most former LRA abductees remain largely unknown. Many former abductees have returned home without passing through a reception center, or passed through a reception center but information about their abduction was never recorded or later lost. While some abductees remain with the LRA, many have died on the battlefield or at the hands of the abductors. More work is needed to identify the number of people who have gone missing in northern Uganda and to investigate their whereabouts. Cross-cultural studies have shown that families wish to know the fate of their missing relatives and, if they have died, to receive their remains.(8)
3. More information is needed to better understand the scope and intensity of abduction in northern Uganda. This reports provides basic information based on registered formerly abducted people who passed through the reception centers. The proportion of abducted people who do not go to reception centers is not known and may vary geographically, and across age and gender. More work is needed to investigate exposure to violence in general and abduction specifically in northern Uganda.
4. Data collection and information management is critical to document population vulnerability and human rights violations and to inform policies. Our study found a significant disparity in the capacity of reception centers to collect, store, and analyze data on former LRA abductees. Reception centers recognized this shortcoming in 2005 and requested that this project be undertaken. A standardized system for collecting and analyzing data on former child soldiers needs to be created to assist the work of reception centers and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs worldwide. Such a system will be useful for several reasons. First, it will enable these institutions to record basic demographic and medical information about child soldiers, as well as qualitative information about their experiences in captivity. Second, having information in a standardized form will improve the ability of data managers to quickly retrieve and cross-reference information as they try to reunite former child soldiers with their parents and other relatives. Third, the analysis of aggregate data on child soldiers can reveal patterns of abduction and captivity that could be useful to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court and others investigating war crimes, including cases of forced conscription. Finally, a standardized database will help centers and DDR programs track former child soldiers who have returned to their families and provide follow-up services.
5. LRA abductions of children and adults increased during and after large military campaigns against the LRA rebels. The Ugandan military and police need to do more to protect civilian populations. Furthermore, better monitoring of trends on abduction in real time could act as an "early warning" system of LRA activity in a given area and signal the need for greater protection of the affected population. The international community should continue to develop programs to protect vulnerable populations in northern Uganda.
6. LRA abductions are geographically more dispersed than previously reported. Abductions are also concentrated in specific locations. The vast majority of former abductees who have passed through the reception centers (89%) were from the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader. This finding suggests that aid organizations providing services to former abductees should broaden the geographical scope of their outreach and programmatic activities.
7. The numbers of former abductees arriving at reception centers have declined since 2004. This may be due to a decrease in hostilities. However, any increase in fighting could result in a sudden surge of abductees arriving at the centers. Moreover, if a peace agreement is reached, it is almost certain that a number of children and youth will leave the LRA and begin arriving at the reception centers or go directly to their homes. These scenarios suggest that local governmental agencies and reception centers should be prepared to provide shelter, food, and other services in the event of a sudden influx of returnees. Additional services should be provided to other vulnerable groups in the community in order to avoid creating the perception of unequal support and thus increasing any rift between the returnees and their communities.
Notes
(1) The LRA refer to these girls and young women as "wives." LRA leader Joseph Kony is said to have had as many as 67 "wives." In a speech delivered in 1977 he said: "King Solomon also had between 600 and 800 wives and God never punished him." Kony prefers young girls because they are presumably free of AIDS. His commanders who perform well in the field of battle have been rewarded with "wives." See Els De Temmerman, Aboke Girls: Children Abducted in Northern Uganda (Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers, 2001), p. 150.
(2) Nor does it include adults who have left the LRA and returned to civilian life. "Youth" in Acholi culture generally pertains to individuals between the ages of 14 and 30. See Jeannie Annan, Christopher Blattman, and Roger Horton, The State of Youth and Youth Participation in Northern Uganda: Findings from the Survey for War-Affected Youth, A Report for UNICEF Uganda, September 2006, pp. iv, vii.
(3) Personal communication with Cornelius William of UNICEF and Ester Atim of Amnesty Commission, December 2006.
(4) Phuong Pham, Patrick Vinck, Marieke Wierda, Eric Stover, and Adrian di Giovanni, Forgotten Voices: A Population-Based Study of Attitudes about Peace and Justice in Northern Uganda, International Center for Transitional Justice and Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley, July 2005. See also Morten Boas and Anne Hatloy, Fafo, The Northern Uganda IDP Profiling Study, Department of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees of the Office of the Prime Minister and and United Nations Development Programme, Vol. 1, September 2005.
(5) See also Erin Baines, Eric Stover, and Marieke Wierda, War-Affected Children and Youth in Northern Uganda: Toward a Brighter Future, An Assessment Report, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, May 2006, at 18-19. 6 Ibid.
(7) In our previous population-based study the scope and nature of abduction included persons who had been abducted for periods ranging from a few hours to several years (see note 4). Generally, former LRA abductees registered by the reception centers have been abducted for long periods of time.
(8) See Eric Stover and Rachel Shigekane, "Exhumation of Mass Graves: Balancing Legal and Humanitarian Needs" in Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein (eds.), My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), at 85-120.