Girl Soldiers – The cost of survival in Northern Uganda

The two met when Lucy had been deprived of water for three days. Lucy begged Grace for a drink, and Grace acquiesced, even though she would have been killed had she been caught.

Now when Lucy and Grace see each other it is instant relief, mostly because they know they will be able to discuss their problems, their traumas, their fears. Since they understand each other’s pasts so well, they can offer each other therapy that they can rarely find anywhere else. Lucy does not even talk about her days in the bush to her mother—it is a taboo topic.

But Grace and Lucy have more in common than just their harrowing past: Neither of them plan to tell their children any time soon of how, and to whom, they were born. Children are already beginning to taunt their children at school, calling them “bush children”, creating rounds of questions for both the mothers. Both Lucy and Grace, who had two children in the bush, avoid the discussion, by offering terse explanations.

Grace tried to marry, which would have assuaged the situation, but the man divorced her when his family found out she was one of “Kony’s children.” This sort of rejection is sadly typical for former female soldiers with children.

“I tell [Winnie] that she wasn’t born in the bush; she was born in Gulu,” Lucy says, which is the absolute truth—Winnie was conceived in the bush, but she wasn’t born there.

To mitigate such harassment, Lucy enrolled Winnie in a private school, where she has a more intimate learning environment. There are no educational standards in public schools, Lucy says, so the family sacrifices everything to provide this for Winnie. Lucy’s mother takes food rations from the displacement camp to sell for Winnie’s school fees. But she broke her arm recently when taking cassava to sell in the West Nile; now, Winnie must carry out the chores for the house.

In June, rising food prices provoked a 5,000 shilling (CZK 50, $3.20) boost in school fees—school fees that Lucy’s mother hadn’t managed to gather yet, bringing the total to 50,000 shillings (CZK 500, $32).

“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.”

- Christine A., age 20, abducted in 1996, VOHU – Village of Hope – Uganda

Emotionally spent, Lucy and her mother sit inside the dark mud hut and discuss the option of selling charcoal over the next few weeks. Lucy also suggests asking the school to allow for an extension in payment. However, the two women conclude that they aren’t going to be able to keep up the momentum—the women might need to return to their family in the displacement camp, and Winnie might have no choice but to be in a poor school system with provocative children.

“She should not be hearing such kind of language as she’s growing,” Lucy says. “It will be dangerous for her to hear that she was born in the bush and that her father is from the bush killing people … She will not be fine in the future.”

But Lucy maintains her hope that at some point she will find, or create, some kind of job, and that she will be able to purchase land for her parents, five brothers, their wives and children, so that the family can leave the displacement camps, where over 1 million northern Ugandans still live despite the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement that was signed in August 2006 between the LRA and the Ugandan government. And then, and only then, will she be able to build a fence around the family compound “to protect” Winnie.

“Maybe I can get a job, and in the future my child will be okay,” she says. “If you have nothing to do, then you suffer.”

A day into her trip and a day away from returning to school in Kampala—where she will study for upcoming exams, sleep in a room with 19 other people, and subsist on a diet of beans—Lucy’s visit home quickly turns sour. While standing with Winnie, the two posing for a photograph, the landlord—and friend of the family—stares at 6-year-old Winnie.

“That child has the eyes of a rebel soldier,” she says to her.

And as much as Winnie doesn’t know about her life, she understands that the words are vitriolic. Winnie sobs. And Lucy consoles her, careful not to tell her the truth.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VqJfl9PI-0&hl=en&fs=1?rel=0]

Ugandan girl soldiers often suffer critical trauma from the violence they witness and take part in during their incarceration with the LRA – The Lord’s Resistance Army. A VOHU – Village of Hope Uganda video/film production.
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For more information on this topic see these reports:
UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency – Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 – Uganda
CAP International – Children/Youth as Peacebuilders
VOHU – Village of Hope – Uganda Child Soldiers Report

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Editor-at-large for Marie Claire magazine in the Czech Republic, WNN journalist, Mindy Kay Bricker, has also been a Womensenews correspondent. As a freelance journalist she has also provided stories for The International Herald Tribune and The Christian Science Monitor.
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Portions of this article have appeared previously in Marie Claire magazine – Czech Republic.
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