Building Uganda's Future

For two decades conflict, abduction and displacement have disrupted the lives of generations of children in northern Uganda. Though peace talks have improved security since 2006, the process of returning home also presents challenges to improving children’s welfare. As parents begin to cultivate fields and rebuild homes, the lack of schools and health services in return areas often forces children to stay behind in displacement camps. These ongoing challenges highlight the need for comprehensive and targeted efforts to address the needs of all children, including those such as girls and formerly abducted children who often have acute vulnerabilities.

Rebuilding schools, recruiting quality teachers and expanding access to education is a particularly pressing need in northern Uganda. In some areas, the student to teacher ratio has been as high as 300:1, the student to classroom ratio 400:1 and the student to toilet ratio, 150:1. School fees and other incidental costs of education prevent many parents from sending their children to school. Today only one in twenty children in northern Uganda complete secondary (high) school - well below the national average. Due to poverty, family responsibilities and the risk of gender-based violence girls are more at risk of not attending school. Girls that do go to school often start later and drop out sooner. Despite these challenges, thousands of children have become teachers (as well as caregivers) to their siblings and to themselves. As security improves, the international community and Ugandan government must fully fund and implement efforts such as the Peace, Recovery and Development Programme (PRDP) to rehabilitate the educational system in northern Uganda.

Expanding access to education is especially crucial for formerly abducted children. Loss of education is often the most significant impact of abduction on children and can hinder successful reintegration into society. Reintegration also hinges on community or family members accepting ex-LRA abductees back into society despite crimes they may have committed or may be associated with. Though large numbers of formerly abducted children experience some negative reactions from the community when they first return home, most of these problems diminish over time. Girls who return home with children fathered by LRA commanders are the least likely to catch up on school and most likely to face stigma from home communities. Some female escapees are forced into prostitution or unstable relationships, while others live in fear that ex-LRA will intimidate or even kill them to prevent testimony about past crimes.

Popular perceptions of former child soldiers as “lost children” and dangerous “killing machines” does injustice to the incredible resiliency of children in northern Uganda. A small percentage of formerly abducted children do sustain debilitating physical and psychological injuries as a result of their captivity with the LRA, and adequate health services for them are scarce. However, former child soldiers are no more likely to show violent behavior than non-abducted children, and rarely rejoin the LRA by choice (though some have been abducted more than once). Formerly abducted children are in fact model youth in many ways, voting and participating in community leadership in uncommonly high numbers. 

Though far from being “lost”, formerly abducted children must struggle to rebuild their lives within communities disrupted by decades of war and displacement. Recent studies have shown that assistance programs which specifically target categories of children such as formerly abducted children or orphans risk stigmatizing these children while creating resentment among other war-affected populations. All children in northern Uganda have been affected by war, and children with similar war experiences are often impacted in different ways. Efforts to assist children that instead focus on specific needs - literacy, secondary education, conflict resolution and emotional counseling – are likely to be more effective and inclusive.