By KT Reporter
Children born to former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in the Acholi Sub-region continue to face significant challenges in gaining identity and reintegrating into their communities, decades after the guns fell silent in Northern Uganda. During the more than two-decade LRA insurgency that devastated Northern Uganda, thousands of girls were abducted and forced into sexual slavery.
The majority of them who managed to return home, came along with children fathered by LRA commanders out of rape and forceful marriages. Today, these children, the majority of them now adolescents, are growing in communities that reject them and often associate them with past atrocities committed by their absent fathers.
Patrick Ochen, a former child soldier is among the hundreds, if not thousands of children born of wartime rape to former LRA fighters who continue to face rejection by relatives for nearly two decades. Ochen doesn’t know his father and who his paternal relatives are, but says that after his return from captivity, he started facing stigma from community members.
Ochen returned from captivity while seven years old in 2005, accompanied by a friend of her mother after fleeing from the LRA rebel base in South Sudan. He, however, says that when her mother returned home, he attempted to reunite with her at their home in Paimol Sub-county, Agago district, but her maternal relatives rejected him.
According to Ochen, many children born in captivity like him continue to struggle to seek recognition from their paternal and maternal families, adding that while their parents are sometimes accepted, they, on the other hand, aren’t welcome.
Ochen is among more than 10,000 children born of war from Northern Uganda who are currently facing an emerging challenge of accessing National Identification documents. Born in captivity and often without formal birth records, children born of war, like Ochen, are not immediately recognized as citizens by the state.
And without National ID, Ochen says they are unable to access public services such as healthcare, education, formal employments, and banking services among others.
Ocen’s last attempt to reunite with his maternal relatives in 2017 equally ended unsuccessfully, after being again rejected. While he has kept the communication with his mother from a distance, Ocen continues to hope that one day he will be accepted as a child of her mother.
Now 27 years old, she has become an activist speaking up for victims of conflicts in Northern Uganda. Pamela Angwech, the Executive Director of Gwed-G, a women-led non-profit organization, acknowledges the struggles of children born in captivity in reintegrating within their maternal or paternal community. She notes that the challenges have been further crippled by the delayed implementation of the National Transitional Justice bill, whose objectives among others roots for re-integration programmes.
Angwech, however, stresses that the process of reintegration should be undertaken through the involvement of religious and cultural leaders, arguing that leaving them aside wouldn’t bring in meaningful reintegration of the children.
Currently, more than 200 children born of war are undergoing mentorship programmes at Gwed-G, a move that helps them to speak up more openly about their plight. Pamela, however, lauded the National Registration and Identification Authority (NIRA) for offering a special program for the registration of children born of war in Northern Uganda.
Innocent Oryema, the NIRA District Registration Officer for Gulu City, Gulu, and Omoro districts, told Uganda Radio Network that a total of 34 formerly abducted persons and children born of war were recently registered for their national identification. The former abductees were repatriated from the Central African Republic (CAR) in late 2023 and underwent rehabilitation and vocational training in Gulu city.
Otyema, however, highlighted that the majority of the returnees feared registering for their National IDs because they thought being born outside Uganda disqualified them from being a Ugandan citizen.
He clarified that one simply has to be born to a Ugandan parent, are able to trace for their lineage and access recommendation letter from their Local Chairperson, and a copy of their relative’s national ID for them to be able to register with NIRA.
Oryema however, said that the major challenges some former abductees and children born of war face is the failure to trace their paternal lineage but noted that under their arrangement, they have limited it to paternal but also maternal lineage for them to be registered.
Oryema has encouraged former abductees and children born of war to take part in the current mass registration and renewal of National IDs that kicked off today by the government-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
