At a community gathering in Gulu, the sound of clapping and laughter mingles with lively music as a group of young adults dance to the rhythm.
Bright smiles adorn their faces, briefly masking the lifetime of trauma, rejection, and struggle to gain acceptance that has defined their existence as the young people entertain their guests.
These are the children brought into the world under the darkest of circumstances during the two-decade-long war in northern Uganda, the forgotten victims whose very lives are a haunting legacy of the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) brutal campaign of violence and systematic abuse of women and girls across the region.
Thousands of women and girls were abducted and subjected to rape, forced marriage to LRA commanders, and unimaginable atrocities. They gave birth to sons and daughters in squalid rebel camps, their innocent children brought into a world of chaos, fear, and bloodshed.
When the guns finally fell silent after years of fighting between 1986 to 2007, a new battle began for the children born of war – a fight for an identity, to belonging, and for the most basic of human rights in the communities that should have embraced them. Instead, they were met with stigma, discrimination, and hatred stemming from long-held cultural beliefs and prejudices that cauterised societal wounds long after the conflict ended.
These young adults came together to discuss their issues at TAKS Centre, a community-run art centre in Gulu town, during a four-day event convened by Gulu Women Economic Development and Globalization (GWED-G), Tallawah Justice for Women, and the University of Nottingham’s School of Law. GWED-G is a non-profit organisation working with women survivor networks and children born of war while Tallawah supports women survivor-led groups and grassroots leaders.
The initiative themed “Not Without Our Children” gathered women leaders together to advocate multi-sectoral and multi-level responses to end intergenerational gendered harms against children born of war. It provided a platform for the children to discuss their challenges with reintegration, reparations, discrimination, and stigma. It also sought to address issues related to land access and economic activities with the aim of bridging the reintegration gaps in their communities.
“Our mothers returned to their communities and villages without the men they were given to as husbands after their abduction,” 24-year-old Oweka Dickens told the gathering during a one-on-one conversation with the participants.
Their communities shunned them, dashing their hopes of reintegration. As a result, some of the women ended up in small shopping centres or other urban areas where they rented houses and lived with their children. Others were supported to live with relatives.
The women-led families met with exclusion and alienation, exacerbated by the deep patriarchy of Ugandan societies. Children born without a claim to their paternal lineage are often viewed as inferior, a stain on the family’s honour. For the children born of the LRA war, the prejudice is amplified, with their very existence seen as a reminder of the darkest chapters of a long and brutal conflict.
“As a boy child in Acholi land without a father, the question we are unable to answer is: ‘Where is your home?’ We are all grown up now. Some of us have even become parents, and yet we have no place to call home. Looking at us, are we unlike any other Ugandan children? Yet no matter how hard we try, we can never escape the label of being a child of an LRA commander,” Oweka explained.
These young adults face many challenges, including difficulties acquiring national IDs, which are required to benefit from government services.
“In high school, when some government officials came to register students for national IDs, I remember our headteacher pointing at us and saying, ‘See these ones, their father is Joseph Kony’,” Oweka said, adding that some of the youths resorted to begging boda boda (motorcycle) riders to pretend to be their fathers so that they could register to get the ID card.
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Oweka is not alone. There are many others who bear the burden of rejection every day, constantly navigating through a world that seems determined to shut them out.
Tereka Fatuma, a 24-year-old third-year student at Gulu University, knows the marginalisation all too well. As a mother, she is reminded, through actions, words, and judgemental stares, that she doesn’t belong simply because of the happenstance of her birth.
“We are no longer children; I have a child. Other girls also have children,” Fatuma said. “No one is willing to give you a helping hand. Our mothers toil to provide even the basic needs, which puts us in a vulnerable position, especially the girls. That’s why we end up getting married so young, hoping that the men we choose will provide for us.”
It is the same trend for their mothers, many of whom chose to get married in order to get a place to stay and raise their children.
“This puts the girl child at risk of rape by their stepfathers. Worse still, most of the men will only support their own children,” said Fatuma.
Where reintegration of women survivors and children has been successful, their families, the uncles mostly, accept girls because they can marry them off and get bride price.
“The boys are looked at suspiciously as land grabbers because they might demand a share of the land,” said Okot Moses, 23.
“This has worsened the issue of identity and having a place to call home. When you have an identity, you are accepted and you can marry and belong,” he added. “According to Acholi culture, if a child doesn’t have a father, he can say he comes from a certain clan, but we don’t know our clans.”
Twenty-four-year-old Abeta Charles echoed Okot’s sentiments during the one-on-one engagement while hinting at another broader issue of betrayal. “Too often, we’ve had people pretending they want to help us, but when they reach positions of power, they turn against us,” he said.
“We expect people in charge of helping children born of war to come directly to us. If you truly want to help, come and talk to us directly. I’m an adult now, I have a child of my own, and I need my voice to be heard directly,” Abeta emphasised.
Despite the challenges they face, these children are resilient and are determined to nurture their fragile integration. They do this by participating in traditional welcoming ceremonies, ritual cleansing, cultural naming practices, and adapting to changing family structures while being careful about revealing their origins.
Some have attempted to trace their fathers or paternal families, hoping to legitimise their identity in the eyes of a society that has rejected them. They dream that if their paternal kin acknowledge their existence, it would finally secure their longed-for sense of belonging and the opportunities denied them.
Some voices have been vocal in demanding action to address their plight through legal reforms and transitional justice policies.
Lyandrol Komakech, a former member of parliament for Gulu Municipality, witnessed first-hand the challenges faced by children born of war through a petition they sent him and so he became one of the people who has been vocal in demanding action to address their plight through legal reforms and transitional justice policies.
“They had no direct support from leaders, no access to senior government officials, no clear leadership to amplify their voices,” he said during an interview with Journalists For Justice (JFJ) after the event. “There was an absence of policies and laws to guide their reintegration. No one understood them.”
The former MP tabled a motion in parliament urging the government to provide direct support to formerly abducted mothers and their children born in captivity. His motion also called for adopting a comprehensive transitional justice policy and legislation to back it. This led to the Office of the Prime Minister being directed to provide immediate relief support in form of school fees and other essentials for the affected families.
This was a critical first step that paved the way for the landmark National Transitional Justice Policy (NTJP), which the Ugandan government adopted in June 2019.
The policy outlines a holistic framework for addressing the legacy of conflicts, including specific provisions for the reintegration of children born of war through cultural institutions and community-based dispute-resolution mechanisms.
“The policy mandates cultural institutions and religious leaders to focus on reintegration programmes for these children,” explained Pamela Angwech, the Executive Director of GWED-G told JFJ.
Among the pressing issues the policy aims to tackle is the lack of national identification documents. Angwech said the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) is preparing to register children born of war during their upcoming national ID registration cycle.
“NIRA is preparing new guidelines that will allow you to use your uncle’s name instead of your father’s,” she said during gathering in Gulu.
This could potentially unlock opportunities for thousands of affected children who have lived in legal limbo, unable to claim their basic rights as citizens.
However, as Komakech admits, progress in implementing the policy has been slow. “For the moment, I do not see any effective approach from the government apart from the policy itself,” he said. “Until we have the law to formally back it, everything else is still a work in progress.”
A Transitional Justice Bill has been proposed and is currently under consideration in parliament. It is expected to provide the legal framework and guidelines to enforce the policy’s provisions, compelling action and appropriation of funds by the government.
Yet the path to true reintegration extends beyond just legal recognition. It requires a fundamental shift in societal attitudes, which are deeply rooted in patriarchal norms and centuries-old cultural beliefs.
During an interview with JFJ, J. Beatrice Okot, a legal representative for children born of war, emphasised the need for sustained community engagement and dialogue to dismantle the prejudices.
“We need constant engagement with the communities where these children live or have come to live,” Okot said. “The focus should not be on money but on forgiveness and addressing the gaps caused by the conflict.”
According to Jane Ekayu, a child rights advocate and founder of Children of Peace Uganda, an organisation dedicated to the well-being and empowerment of former child soldiers, children born in captivity, and children orphaned by war, the way forward lies in leveraging the very cultural systems that have ostracised the children to pave the way for their reintegration.
“We are going back to those traditional cultural systems that hold leadership hierarchies,” Ekayu said during the reintegration dialogue with survivors, victims, and clan leaders at Alero – Nwoya district in Gulu.
“By sending the mothers back into their cultural settings and having clan leaders accept them, we can give these young people a home to belong to,” she added.
It is a delicate balancing act – respecting and upholding cultural practices while at the same time dismantling the prejudices they have bred against children born of war.
Such efforts, however, require buy-in and cooperation from community leaders and cultural authorities, many of whom remain entrenched in the beliefs that have marginalised the children.
Speaking to JFJ in Kampala, Uganda, Olympia Bekou, professor of public international law and the head of the School of Law at the University of Nottingham, said having a multi-pronged approach by the actors involved at every level is crucial to bridging the gaps and reaching every individual impacted by the conflict.
“Uganda has the legal framework in place and there is a transitional justice policy. What is sorely lacking is the actual implementation of that framework on the ground. It is not enough to have good legislation outlining the framework,” she stated. “We need to focus on the actual implementation, enhancing the justice sector, bringing more perpetrators to justice at the national level through the International Crimes Division of the High Court.”
Lorraine Smith van Lin, founder and Executive Director of Tallawah, agreed. “We want the government to ensure that the laws and policies are in accord with international norms, respecting the rights of children born of war.”
Lin’s words ring true as the plight of children in war-torn regions like Ukraine and Gaza has captured global attention in recent times. The Ugandan experience, though often overlooked, could offer valuable lessons for addressing such situations.
“We cannot leave the children behind,” Lin emphasised in an interview. “These young adults have voices and they want to speak out about their situation. Their stories have been told many times, but their situation doesn’t seem to be changing.”
“All we want is to be empowered, to contribute and participate in the development of this nation. We are Ugandans and we love our country,” said Komakech Moses, 27.
