Source: Daily Monitor
It is nine years since Juliet Atto returned from LRA captivity after being forcefully abducted by the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in 1995.

Ms Atto was abducted with 15 others on her way to Alero Primary School where she was in Primary Three in 1996. She was forced at 14 years, to be the sixth wife of a deceased LRA commander whom she did not want to reveal.

Atoo escaped from captivity in 2002, but her freedom was short lived as one of the UPDF soldiers who rescued her, forced her to be his wife and did not allow her to make contact with anybody. “It was like hell for me. He would not allow me to go out of the house or even accept any of his colleagues to enter his hut. None of the women in the barracks could even come near my door,” she said. She only regained her freedom in 2006 when the soldier, whom she says hails from Moyo district, died of HIV/Aids. She bore two children for him but one has since died.

Now back home and HIV positive, Ms Atto is struggling to make ends meet with only remaining relative, her aunt. All her parents and brothers were killed during the insurgency.

Ms Stella Akot, was abducted at a tender age of 12 from their home in Cwero, Gulu District. While in captivity, an LRA commander forced her to be his wife, and she bore two children with him. She escaped with her children in mid-2002.

In 2005, she got married to a man with whom she has a child but he resents her two children. “He does not take good care of the children and he only contributes Shs8, 000 towards rent. I have to work to pay their school fees and feeding.”

The accounts of these girls, are shared by many other formerly abducted child mothers, who have been robbed of their innocence and endured depressing experience in the hands of the LRA commanders that terrorised the region for two decades.

Two reports by the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Uganda) launched in Gulu recently identifies failing health, limited access to justice and undignified livelihoods as some of the biggest reintegration impediments faced by these girls.

The reports titled, ‘Bearing witness, girl mothers of Gulu district’ and another, ‘In the Multiple Systems of Justice in Uganda, Whither Justice for Women?’, provides a horrifying account of 35 formerly abducted girl mothers. According to the report, rape, sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies and injuries that the former abductees suffered has greatly compromised their health.

In addition, it was found that most of them still find difficulty in accessing health facilities and health related information, a situation which has led to the Sexually Transmitted Diseases they suffer from, advancing to critical stages.

They girls, the report states are suffering from psychological torture and mental illness. It also points that some of the child mothers have been rejected by their parents or relatives. “Through beatings her bones were broken and the man abandoned her and on her return, her family also rejected her, she is in Gulu Town where she does odd jobs to make ends meet so that she can take care of her three children,” the report narrated the ordeal of one girl.

It identifies resource constraint, cultural biasness in the traditional justice system, awareness concerns and the lack of a clear policy to prosecute gender related violence in the International Crimes Division as some of the major legal glitches.

One of its recommendations is for the government to start free reproductive health treatment centres in the region, and to create a child mothers’ compensation fund to help improve their livelihoods. “I feel that despite so many years after the end of the conflict, they are far from receiving any justice or compensation. The Uganda government should do more to ensure that justice and reparation are looked at as the key issues in the reconstruction of northern Uganda,” Ms Vahida said in a separate interview.

Justice Owiny Dollo, who attended the lunch of the report in Gulu, blamed the State for failure to protect the victims and called for a legislative framework to make them access government programmes in the region like NUSAF and PRDP. “I think we need to fight from whatever vantage point we enjoy to arrive at a legislation that will spell out how these various interventions for northern Uganda would assist the victims and the entire community to rebuild their lives,” he said.

The rwot of the Patiko chiefdom, Jeremiah Bongojane, said the women may not even access justice under the male dominated Acholi culture.“Acholi cultural laws protect the women on paper, but on practice, the people who should help the women are the men and their words are final, wrong or right. The women have nothing to do,” he remarked.

The Fourth Division spokesman Capt Peter Mugisha said the army is looking into the issue of documenting and compensating the former rebels who joined the army and urged the victims to report to the army. 

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