15 - Lessons Learnt from the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Girl Mothers in Northern Uganda: A Case-Study from Gulu District

Summary

INTRODUCTION

There is a widespread consensus on the critical importance of addressing the protection and promotion of the rights of the girl child. However, girls still bear the worst human rights abuses, during and after armed conflict, which have mental, emotional, spiritual, physical and material repercussions. These violations include abduction, forced removal from families, forced recruitment of children into fighting forces and a wide range of physical and sexual violations, including rape, enforced pregnancy, forced prostitution, forced marriage and forced child-bearing.This is especially true for girls who return from captivity with children who are considered particularly vulnerable. The result has been untold suffering and trauma.This has implications for the delivery of psychosocial support services for the girls as stipulated in Article 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The northern part of Uganda has been beset by conflict for the last 22 years as a result of the insurgency mainly of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), one of Africa's most notorious and brutal wars. The conflict in northern Uganda has been devastating and has had an adverse impact on people's lives; many people, especially women and girls, have been abducted, raped, tortured and even killed. Due to the conflict in northern Uganda, up to 2 million people (80%) have been displaced and forced to live in neglected internally displaced persons camps; these have been displaced within districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Lira, Apac, Soroti, Kaberamaido and Adjumani. Displacement has led to the erosion of the Acholi culture, destruction of individuals, families and communities, reinforcement of feelings of economic and political marginalisation, and loss of property (ibid.). Although not as numerous as boys, girls have been abducted in large numbers by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has been waging war against the Government of Uganda since 1987. Of an estimated 38,000 children abducted by the LRA since the beginning of the conflict, 7,500 are girls and 1,000 are “girl mothers” who conceived children while in captivity.