Many of the children worry about brothers and sisters who are still in LRA captivity. One third of the children interviewed by Human Rights Watch were abducted with siblings that are still missing. She and one sister have managed to escape; the other sister and her brother are still in captivity.
One sister was eventually released, but the other remains missing. Most of the children want to return to school, but many don't feel it's safe at home. In my home area, rebels are moving freely, so I could easily be reabducted. I will go to visit my parents, but will study in town and stay with my uncle.
His leg was amputated after he was shot in a battle with the UPDF. Some children will join the "night commuters"—the children who travel into town each night to sleep, seeking safety from abduction. She plans to return to her family in Agwe, but will go into town to sleep at night, together with her sister, who has also escaped the LRA.
She said that she is "afraid when I hear about the LRA, because now that I have been abducted, they might kill me. Returnees also suffer ongoing physical and psychological problems. A nurse at World Vision identified gunshot wounds, skin problems from walking long distances, and sexually transmitted diseases as the major physical problems affecting returnees.
She estimates that about fifteen percent return with gunshot wounds, and another five percent have injuries from bomb fragments. Fifteen children assisted by the center since have had limbs amputated.
The nurse also identified psychological problems for returnees. Some are quiet, withdrawn, and don't want to talk. She told us that she dreams that she is staying with her mother and that the LRA comes and abducts her. Many wonder about their future. Sixteen-year old John W. Some seem to have things to do here, and a place to go, but for me, the future is blank. What am I going to do?
Ugandan government forces also recruit children. However, after being trained, many children do not return to their home areas and are reportedly used to fight with the UPDF against the LRA.
The use of LDUs outside their home areas led one activist to note, "It is the broadest definition of the word 'local' when describing the activities of the LDUs in the Congo or the Sudan. For many boys from families impoverished by the war and without a source of income, the promise of a salary is sufficient incentive to join the LDUs.
According to Lt. Paddy Ankunda, the public relations officer for the Army's Fourth Division, candidates for the LDUs must be at least eighteen years old, have completed their education to level S4 or above four years of secondary education , be in good health, and have a recommendation from their LCI local councilor. According to local councilors questioned on LDU candidature, there is a both an official and unofficial recruitment process.
The official recruitment is conducted much as described by Lt. Ankunda above, drawing largely from retired military and former security personnel. An unofficial recruitment however, bypasses the local councilors, with men and underage recruits reporting directly to military posts.
Age and education verification as well as letters of recommendation are neither presented nor demanded. One local councilor responsible for an area just outside of Gulu town became aware of this "unofficial" recruitment, when parents of the boys came and berated him because they believed he had recommended their children to serve.
The youngest boy recruited from his parish in was twelve years old. When this local councilor approachedthe barracks on several occasions to protest, he was told that the boys were not there or were fighting for the defense of their country. The leader of an IDP camp outside of Gulu town also reported that boys approach the barracks directly for recruitment, skirting the recommendation requirement.
However, in this instance, the councilor working in his area was able to secure the release of some of the boys. Representatives of the Church of Uganda provided Human Rights Watch with details related to twenty-two boys and young men, aged fifteen to eighteen, who were recruited into the LDUs and subsequently escaped from the UPDF.
Some of the recruits responded to radio announcements regarding LDU recruitment and were promised that after training, they would be returned to their home areas.
Others heard that the UPDF was offering scholarships for secondary boarding schools. Both groups were loaded into trucks together with up to other boys, and taken to theFourth Division headquarters in Gulu, where they reported that all of their documentation, including identification cards and birth certificates, was burned.
The recruits were then taken to a UPDF training camp called "Waligo" and quartered in the barracks of Ngomoromo in Lamwo county in Kitgum district, near the Sudan border.
The boys told the church representatives that the military training lasted a month, and that during that time, many trainees died from disease, lack of food, and other hardships. Over time, they said, they became weaker and weaker, and began making more mistakes, resulting in more frequent punishments.
In some cases, recruits who tried to escape were reportedly killed. Trainees reported that they were given military uniforms, but no papers, matriculation number, or salary. Eighteen of the twenty-two boys who have returned had escaped from the training camps in Uganda. The remaining four were sent to Sudan with other boys and young men to assist with Operation Iron Fist.
These four were not used as fighters but carried communications and served as porters. They later escaped from Sudan in June and July Church leaders believe that the recruitment of children in is linked to the beginning of Operation Iron Fist:. Church leaders believe that large-scale recruitment of children, like that in Nebbi, may have ended, in part because of protests by the Church.
However, other reports indicate that smaller-scale recruitment of child recruitment into the LDUs continues. He said that boys responded because of the promised salary and "out of frustration" with their situation, and often joined without the permission of their parents. He reported that boys were trained at military positions in Binya parish or in Acet, both in Omoro county, Gulu district.
He estimates that at least fifty boys had been recruited from Acet and Awer camps in December. He also provided specific details of seven boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen, from Omoro, Nwoya, and Aswa counties, whose parents reported that they had been recruited into the LDUs with the knowledge of local authorities.
The councilor said that some parents try to get their children back through LCIs or LCIIIs, but have been told by soldiers that if their son has been in training for two weeks or more, he cannot be released. He knew of about ten cases where boys had run away from the LDUs after enlisting, but had been retrieved and taken back by soldiers.
He had also been told by some families that their sons had reportedly been killed by the LRA during battles. I joined nine others who were there, mostly boys.
The soldiers lured us into accepting to fight with the UPDF with offers of money and benefits, but I refused. One boy, sixteen, accepted and he immediately started training at the barracks with the other soldiers. He was moved from us and kept in better quarters. The children who escape, are captured, or released from the LRA usually pass through UPDF detachments or barracks before transfer to the Child Protection Unit and finally, the rehabilitation centers.
Children spend on average one week in the barracks, depending on the location of the military outpost, before transfer to the CPUs in Gulu or Kitgum towns. Boy abductees are also asked to join forces with the UPDF at this time.
In barracks in Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader districts, soldiers asked the majority of the boys interviewed for this report to enlist in their ranks.
The youngest asked was thirteen years old. Although no instances of force were reported, soldiers nonetheless knew the ages of the boys from their questioning and that underage recruitment is in violation of Ugandan and international law.
Boys, some of whom had spent years with the LRA undergoing the hardships detailed above, were tempted with promises of respect, money, new uniforms, and a better life.
None of the boys who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch at the rehabilitation centers agreed to join, but they gave credible details on others who did. One military detachment where this type of recruitment was repeatedly mentioned was Achol-Pii barracks in Pader district. They would say things like, 'We will treat you well, give you money and food and a new uniform. Why waste your time going home and doing nothing?
They told me that I could have this money and clothes right now, and more later if I agreed to join them. The soldiers there asked me lots of questions about the LRA, just like you. They asked if I could take them to where the LRA was located, but once the commander of the post learned I was going out with the soldiers he intervened.
He refused, saying that 'this boy could not be taken back out there. Once the children pass through the rehabilitation centers, they resettle in their home areas or in new locations. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, one counselor at a child rehabilitation center expressed surprise at seeing children who had passed through the center, now wearing uniforms of the UPDF.
Church leaders have documented and brought to the attention of military authorities cases where UPDF soldiers approach formerly abducted boys and men in their home areas. As at the barracks, they are urged to 'help' with UPDF operations in southern Sudan and offered monetary benefits. In one case, a UPDF officer insulted a wounded child, suggesting he could no longer perform at school and should join the army instead.
They are also malnourished, abused, and often arrive with only the clothes on their back. In a physically and psychologically weakened state, they may fall prey to temptations from the soldiers and the promise of money and a new life. Both the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government are in violation of international standards prohibiting the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Uganda is also in violation of its national laws, which establish eighteen as the minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces.
The additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which are part of international humanitarian law the laws of war , prohibit all recruitment of children under the age of fifteen or their use in hostilities. This standard is binding on both governmental and non-governmental forces and is now considered customary international law. On May 6, , Uganda acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
The Optional Protocol sets eighteen as the minimum age for all forced recruitment or conscription, and for participation in hostilities. Under Article 3 of the protocol, Uganda has also made a binding declaration affirming eighteen as its minimum age for any voluntary recruitment into its armed forces. This declaration states,. The Government of the Republic of Uganda declares that the minimum age for the recruitment of persons into the armed forces is by law set at eighteen 18 years.
Recruitment is entirely and squarely voluntary and is carried out with the full informed consent of the persons being recruited. There is no conscription in Uganda. The Optional Protocol also places an important burden upon nongovernmental armed forces such as the LRA. Article 4 states that "armed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a state should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of eighteen.
The Protocol also places obligations on the government to assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers.
It states Article 6 that States Parties shall "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons within their jurisdiction recruited or used in hostilities contrary to this Protocol are demobilized or otherwise released from service.
States Parties shall, when necessary, accord to these persons all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social integration. Uganda is also party to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, a regional treaty that came into force in The Charter states that a "child" is anyone below eighteen years of age, and that "States parties to the present Charter shall take all necessary measures to ensure that no child shall take a direct part in hostilities and refrain in particular, from recruiting any child.
Both the LRA and the government of Uganda must take immediate steps to comply with international law by ending all recruitment of children under the age of eighteen, demobilizing or releasing all children from their ranks, and facilitating their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Wilder Taylor, legal and policy director, and Iain Levine, program director, also edited the report. Dana Sommers and Colin Relihan, associates in the Children's Rights Division, provided invaluable production assistance.
We wish to thank first and foremost the many children who shared their stories with us and inspired us with their courage. We would prefer to mention them by name, but doing so may jeopardize their safety. We are grateful to the many individuals who agreed to meet with us in the north including church and civil society leaders, national and international NGO's, members of the press, local government officials, and officers of the UPDF.
This report is part of a larger project focused on documenting human rights abuses in Northern Uganda that is supported by the MacArthur Foundation. We also acknowledge with appreciation the Oak Foundation and the Independence Foundation, which support our work on children's rights. We stand with victims and activists to bring offenders to justice, to prevent discrimination, to uphold. We challenge governments and those holding power to end abusive practices and respect international.
We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Michele Alexander, development director; Carroll Bogert, communications director; A. Widney Brown, deputy program director; John T. Jonathan Fanton is the chair of the board.
Robert L. Bernstein is the founding chair. Its Children's Rights Division was established in to monitor and promote the human rights of children around the world. Jane Green Schaller is chair and Roland Algrant is the vice-chair of the advisory committee. Listserv address: To receive Human Rights Watch news releases by email, subscribe to the HRW news listserv by sending a blank e-mail message to hrw-news-subscribe topica. Agency for International Development, August , pp.
All names of children have been changed to protect their privacy. Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as "every human being under the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier. UNICEF states that a conservative estimate is that 4, children were abducted in , the vast majority in the second half of the year.
Abductions have continued in For more information, see www. It should be noted that children at both centers who chose to be tested were more likely to be at high risk of HIV infection than those who chose not to be tested. These representatives conducted direct interviews with the recruits in June and July of Letters in possession of Human Rights Watch researchers.
Article 4 3 c of Protocol II, which governs non-international armed conflicts, states that "children who have not attained the age of fifteen years shall neither be recruited in the armed forces or groups nor allowed to take part in hostilities. Help us continue to fight human rights abuses. Please give now to support our work.
Human Rights Watch. Donate Now. Summary Early on when my brothers and I were captured, the LRA explained to us that all five brothers couldn't serve in the LRA because we would not perform well. Methodology This report is based on field research conducted by Human Rights Watch in northern Uganda in February To the Government of Uganda Immediately end all recruitment of children into the Local Defense Units or UPDF and ensure that all individuals recruited in the future are at least eighteen; Investigate allegations of recruitment of former LRA abductees while they are at the barracks, as was the case for children held at Achol-Pii barracks in late Promptly bring those responsible for child recruitment to justice; Identify and demobilize all children currently serving in the LDUs or UPDF; Instruct the UPDF and security personnel to take all possible steps to protect children from abduction by the LRA; When fighting the LRA, make all feasible attempts to minimize child casualties; Transport children as quickly as possible from outlying barracks in the districts to the Child Protection Units.
Ensure that children are kept at the CPUs no longer than 48 hours. The envoy should work closely with the appointed government negotiation team, religious, and other civilian leaders in northern Uganda, as well as with NGOs and UN agencies that have been involved in the situation; Urge the LRA to immediately end all recruitment of children and to release all children currently in captivity; Urge the government of Uganda to end all recruitment of children, in accordance with its obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
To UNICEF Establish and maintain an office in northern Uganda in order to strengthen its child protection activities on behalf of children in the north; Systematically monitor child recruitment by Ugandan military forces, including both the UPDF and Local Defense Units, and continue to raise the issue with the relevant authorities.
To the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child Send a team to investigate and report on children's rights abuses in the north of Uganda and widely circulate the findings to members of the African Union.
When I was coming back, I was stopped. The LRA told me not to run and they grabbed me and tied me up around the waist. I had a school uniform in my pocket. They told me to go ahead and drop the uniform, and to leave it for some others to go to school.
Now that I was working for them, I wouldn't need it anymore. It was the soldiers who did the beating. For the cane we were made to lie on our stomach and then the soldiers would beat us on the buttocks. There were twenty-three of us. For the machete, we were made to bend over at the waist, and then the soldiers would use the blunt end of it to beat us on the back.
Not all were so lucky. One boy tried to escape and was caught, tied up, and marched back to camp. All the recruits from the various companies were told that we were never going home, that we were fighting now with the LRA so as a symbol of our pledge to fight on, this boy would be killed and we would help. Soldiers then laid the boy on the ground and stabbed him three times with a bayonet until the blood began seeping from the wounds.
Then the new recruits approached the boy and beat him on the chest. Each one had a turn and could only stop once the blood from the body splashed up on to you. This boy was sixteen years old. We were beating him with sticks, each recruit was given a stick. While we were in the bush, commander Bukot had come across a Cwaa tree, this is a tough tree that has strong branches and it makes good poles for building houses.
Commander Bukot cut a branch from the tree and shaved it down to a smooth pole, about two feet long. He then ordered me to keep it well for him to use. Some days later, a soldier from a different company, came up to me and ordered me to hand over the stick.
I could not refuse an officer. When Commander Bukot found out that I had given away his stick, he charged me with negligence and ordered strokes of the cane. About half way through the beating, the pain became so great, I thought I was going to die.
I lost count of the beatings and lost consciousness. Following the caning, I was forced to my feet and had my arms tied behind my back, bound just above the elbows.
I was told that I was going to be taken and clubbed to death, but evidently, the commander felt that I had had enough and the clubbing never happened. Thorns embedded in the bottom of my feet became infected. Eventually, I could no longer keep up and the commander who had initially abducted me told me I was useless as I could not walk.
He turned away and then two soldiers, in full uniform, approached and started beating me with the heavy ends of their RPG's rocket propelled grenades.
I was repeatedly beaten on the head and body and left for dead. Two days later, a local farmer found me. The soldiers would stay outside and send the recruits into the houses to steal and bring the goods outside. We would loot as much as we could carry and then move off together in a group.
Sometimes LRA soldiers would attack the army detachment and we the recruits would be ordered to wait. If they were successful, when the shooting ended we would be given the all-clear sign and then break into the houses and shops. Following the training I was given my own submachine gun and a pair of military trousers. I fought twice with the LRA. The first time we attacked a military detachment in Moyo district. We suffered heavy losses, and many of the LRA soldiers were killed.
In the second battle, we laid a successful ambush on a passing UPDF convoy. When we enter ambushes, children die. When there is bombing, children die because they don't know what to do. The next morning, at 5 a. My hands were swollen so I wasn't able to lift the jerry can onto my head. No one came to help, so I decided to pour out the water and throw the can away. I went into the bush. It was raining heavily so I stayed under a tree.
When it stopped, I stayed in the wilderness, eating leaves. I spent three weeks there. One day I saw a road. I had no strength left and collapsed by the road. A hunter came and found me and carried me on his bicycle. The Future I'm not happy at all because they ruined me.
I had to cut short my studies. I have no hope that I will one day be somebody. I gave birth to two children and was not prepared. I have two children and no means of survival. I worry about what will happen next. Initially the idea was to have social workers go out first and contact family members and the community, and then go back a week later. Then send the child out for one day, and then have the child come back for a longer period, a gradual reintegration process.
But this has been disrupted. There is insecurity to the child, the families, and to the social workers. So this work has been interrupted by the insurgency. The majority of kids are now staying in and around the municipality, or they are sent to other districts. Church leaders believe that the recruitment of children in is linked to the beginning of Operation Iron Fist: There is a strong connection here between Iron Fist needing manpower and empty places on payrolls, so people needed to fill the ranks quickly to cover themselves.
He has also used terror to maintain control, beating and killing followers who were caught trying to flee. Some former fighters have said they complied with the leader's orders out of fear. Ex-commander Kenneth Banya told the BBC in that he had sex with a minor because he was threatened with death if he left her alone. Mr Kony has described himself as a "freedom fighter" but has been accused of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the north of Uganda.
He has used biblical references to explain why it was necessary to kill his own people, since they had, in his view, failed to support his cause. In his first interview in , filmed at his jungle base at the time in DR Congo , he insisted he was not the monster he was portrayed to be. I cannot cut the ear of my brother; I cannot kill the eye of my brother.
Mr Kony's fighters continued to spread terror targeting and killing local people for provisions. They later moved to CAR where they acted more like a criminal outfit engaging in poaching and illegal mining.
There have been attempts to make peace, but talks fell apart in because the LRA leader wanted assurances that he and his allies would not be prosecuted. But some LRA fighters are being prosecuted. Other key figures have either been killed, captured, or have given themselves up.
Mr Kony's global notoriety increased in because of the social media campaign that used the hashtag Kony A video posted online by the US advocacy group Invisible Children was watched tens of millions of times. It inspired a public outcry, which included celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, to boost the hunt for Mr Kony. About US troops had already been deployed to central Africa in to support an African Union-led mission against the LRA, but Kony increased the pressure to get results.
The film proved controversial, especially in Uganda, where critics said it oversimplified a complex subject, but Invisible Children said it succeeded in extending the US mission.
However, Mr Kony has not been found and in the US and Ugandan armies ended their efforts to track him down. They argued that his ability to cause trouble had been degraded and he was no longer a threat.
Has Joseph Kony been defeated? Taking on Uganda's LRA rebels. Africa Today podcasts. Kony gives orders to abduct children: The LRA has forcibly recruited children for decades. Joseph Kony was indicted by the International Criminal Court in on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including forced enlistment of children. Multiple LRA escapees have reported that in January Kony gave renewed orders to his commanders to abduct children so that they could be integrated into the LRA.
The EWS is also used to document the identities of children who have been abducted. The LRA traffics abducted children across vast distances, meaning that abductees escape hundreds of kilometers from their homes, sometimes in a neighboring country. Since , Invisible Children and its partners have reunified 56 children, as well as 27 adults, who have escaped from LRA captivity. Lack of reintegration services: After they are reunified with their families, returnees need support in order to address psychological trauma, resume their education, establish a livelihood, and contribute meaningfully to their communities.
Funding for such services has reduced considerably in recent years, leaving escapees with uncertain futures.
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