I. Introduction
"Where else in the world have there
been 20,000 kidnapped children? Where else in the world have 90 per cent
of the population in large districts been displaced? Where else in the
world do children make up 80 per cent of the terrorist insurgency movement?...For
me the situation is a moral outrage...We hope, on the humanitarian side,
that we're now seeing a beginning of an end to this 18year, endless litany
of horrors, where the children are the fighters and the victims in northern
Uganda...This would take a much bigger international investment -- in money,
in political engagement, in diplomacy and also more concerted efforts to
tell the parties there is no military solution...there is a solution through
reconciliation, an end to the killing and the reintegration and demobilization
of the child combatants."
Jan Egeland, UN UnderSecretaryGeneral for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency
Relief Coordinator 1
Over the last eighteen years, war has devastated northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel force led by Joseph Kony, professes to fight a spiritual war for the Acholi people against the government of Uganda (GOU) and its military, the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF). The LRA's political agenda remains unclear, although Kony says he wants the Ten Commandments to be the rule of law for Uganda. However, the LRA has been responsible for countless atrocities committed against its own community, including the abduction and abuse of tens of thousands of children and adolescents, 2 who make up most of the rebel army.
In March 2002, the Ugandan government began Operation Iron Fist, a military offensive against the LRA. Since the operation began, the LRA has intensified its attacks on civilian communities, increasing abductions, forced recruitment and massacres. 3 Abducted girls and boys are forced to commit unthinkable atrocities against each other and against their communities.
More than half of the young people in the region who have not been abducted live in displaced persons camps, where access to education, health care and other basic necessities is minimal and security is uncertain. Girls are particularly vulnerable to abuse, rape and sexual exploitation or enslavement. An estimated 1.6 million Ugandans have been displaced by the war -- over 90 percent of the population in the north. 4 Nearly 70 percent of the displaced population is under 25 years old. 5
Amongst the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Uganda are an estimated 44,000 "night commuters" in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts. 6 The night commuters are mostly children, adolescents and women who flee their villages or IDP camps each night for town centers seeking safety from LRA attack. These night commuters represent only a small portion of the IDP population, but their situation dramatically illustrates how inadequate protection has led to increasing violence against children and adolescents.
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (Women's Commission) Children and Adolescents Project staff conducted an initial investigation into night commuter conditions in December 2003. The Women's Commission traveled to Gulu and Kitgum Districts in northern Uganda and to Kampala, Uganda's capital in the south. The principal purpose of the trip was to assist two youth organizations -- Watwero Rights Focus Initiative (Watwero) and Gulu Youth for Action (GYFA) 7 -- in developing advocacy strategies for projects the groups are undertaking with funding from American Jewish World Service (AJWS). The Women's Commission conducted a followup investigation September 13-27,2004. After the December 2003 investigation, the Women's Commission published a report: No Safe Place to Call Home: Child and Adolescent Night Commuters in Northern Uganda. This document is an addendum to No Safe Place. Both are available on the Women's Commission's website: www.womenscommission.org.
The findings in Resilience in the Darkness are based on joint research by the Women's Commission, Watwero, and GYFA. The two youth groups identified changes since December 2003 in the motivations for nightly displacement and the conditions night commuters face in sleeping spaces and in transit. They identified continuing and new problems and proposed solutions. Specific issues addressed were adequacy of sleeping spaces and materials, lighting, sanitation and water, sense of security and supervision, genderbased violence and other abuses. During both trips, Watwero organized a team of its members to work with the Women's Commission to conduct investigations into the situation of the night commuters. The September 2004 investigation team met with night commuters and those caring for them, focusing especially on how their nightly living conditions and security have changed since the previous investigation. In Gulu, GYFA members also assisted the Women's Commission in revisiting night commuters and their caregivers.
Interviews were conducted at the same sites as the December 2003 investigation -- in Kitgum at St. Joseph's Mission Hospital, Kitgum Government Hospital and Kitgum Public School, and in Gulu at Noah's Ark Night Commuter Center. 8 The bus park and shop verandahs in Kitgum were not revisited, but reports of night commuter activity in these spaces were provided by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Sample questions used in interviews with night commuters are attached. (See Appendix, page 15). This report also describes current strategies and activities implemented by humanitarian assistance agencies, the United Nations, donors, the GOU and youth groups in northern Uganda.
This report provides information on the conditions and security of night commuters in Gulu and Kitgum Districts. The section on Gulu does not provide as much detail as the Kitgum section due to fewer investigations conducted in Gulu. The Women's Commission was unable to conduct specific investigations amongst the night commuters in Gulu due to a new shelter policy instructing night commuters to not answer questions from nonstaff members. Each section provides an overview on sleeping accommodations; basic health and sanitation; and safety and security. There are separate sections discussing the impact of gangs on the night commuters, and on genderbased violence. The report concludes with a section on responses to the night commuter crisis and recommendations. This report provides a glimpse into the continuing night commuter conditions and is not comprehensive. The issues covered in this report need continued investigation and documentation, and call for an immediate and comprehensive response from the international community.
Footnotes:
1 United Nations News Centre, "UN relief official spotlights world's largest neglected crisis in northern Uganda," 21 October 2004, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=12297&Cr=uganda&Cr1=
2 The principal international standard for determining who "children" are remains the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states in Article 1 that a "child" is "every human being below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Thus, note that national standards may differ. Additional chronological definitions provided by United Nations organizations that acknowledge differences in and overlap between and within childhood and adulthood are also instructive: Children: under 18; Adolescents: 10 to 19; Youth: 15 to 24; Young people: 10 to 24.
3 Global IDP Database, Concerted military offensive by the National Army to fight rebels (March 20022003), http://www.db.idpproject.org/Sites/IdpProjectDb/idpSurvey.nsf/wViewCountries/9CD67FA54ED9EE13C1256D430049B894
4 IDP Project: Sources: GoU, 11 November 2003, OCHA September, March, April 2003, OCHA April/May, June, July/August 2002, January/February 2002, February 2001, UN Humanitarian Coordination Unit (UNHCU) 24 January 2002, 14 July 2000, 20 December 2000, OCHA 23 October 1998.
5 According to the IDP Database, 70 percent of all Ugandans are under 25 years of age. UNAIDS estimates that 50 percent of the population in Uganda is under 15 years. http://www.unaids.org/en/geographical+area/by+country/uganda.asp
6 Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP): Humanitarian Appeal 2005 for Uganda, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 11 Nov 2004. Night commuter statistics are continuously changing as a result of the changing level of insecurity in each district. Whereas no one knows the exact number of night commuters, perceptions of their decreasing numbers should not be used to reduce or dissuade material assistance and a government coordinated protection strategy to increase night commuter security en route to and within sleeping spaces. According to OCHA, the number of night commuters in Gulu, Kitgum and Kalongo towns reached a high of 52,000 in June 2004.
7 Both Watwero Rights Focus Initiative and Gulu Youth for Action were formed as a result of adolescentdesigned and =ADled research and advocacy undertaken with the Women's Commission beginning in 2000, in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee Uganda, World Vision Uganda and other partners. Young people from Pader District were also involved in the workshop in Kitgum, including members of the Pader Concerned Youth Association, a group also formed by former adolescent study researchers and youth coordinators, and the Youth Amalgamated Development Association (YADA). A representative from Luo Development Incorporated (LDI) also participated in the Gulu workshop. A report of the participatory action research undertaken previously by many of these and other young people with the Women's Commission, Against All Odds, Surviving the War on Adolescents in Northern Uganda, (Women's Commission, 2001), is available from the Women's Commission's website, www.womenscommission.org. The Children and Adolescents Project section of the website also describes some of the followup advocacy undertaken with the young people in northern Uganda and outlines several policy and program improvements achieved in the region. Additional talking points about the current humanitarian crisis for IDP young people in northern Uganda are also available.
8 The Women's Commission, with Watwero Rights Focus Initiative, Gulu Youth for Action and additional youth organizations, visited the following night commuter sites: in Kitgum: St. Joseph's Mission Hospital (9/15/04), Kitgum Government Hospital (9/16/04), Kitgum Public School (9/17/04); in Gulu: Noah's Ark(9/21/04).
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