Partners: Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice; The Women’s Advocacy Network;
With the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN), JRP works to advocate for the promotion and respect of rights of children born of war and/or forced marriage by facilitating child reintegration and family reunions for children born of war across northern Uganda. In doing so, WAN members reunite children with their families and mediate such processes to ensure there is reconciliation and acceptance.
During the LRA conflict, among other groups, women and girls were abducted and forced to become wives of rebel commanders. This led to a number of children born in captivity. On return, the women found it hard to reintegrate back into their communities with their children as many were/are ostracized, stigmatized, denied access to resources, or rejected by their own families or community members. Children that returned with their mothers continue to demand to belong to their paternal families; many of the children that returned with their mothers faced rejection and segregation from their maternal families and from their mothers’ newly married husbands. In Acholi community, children belong to paternal families and have right to resources at their paternal side, including the right to inherit land that they would use to establish their own families.
Reunification with the family has been an integral aspect of reintegration for children and their mothers in the advocacy and reconciliation work of JRP. JRP has been working with women who returned from captivity since 2005 and has learned that many mothers had tried themselves to search for the homes of their children. Many children continue to ask their mothers the whereabouts of their paternal homes and find that not knowing their home can be a painful void in their sense of identity. Additionally, knowing one’s “home” (paternal village) is an integral component of social belonging in Acholi culture. Family connections often provide comfort, key survival resources, and a sense of belonging. This has made family reunions an important aspect of reintegration for children born in captivity and their mothers.
Over the year 2016, JRP and WAN piloted a reintegration project through families reunion which proved very successful and created more impact than was first expected. Following the achievement of the 2016 reintegration process, family reunions do not only help in reintegration of the children but also simultaneously contribute to the reconciliation process in communities. Many families acknowledged that reintegration of the children born of war also created a form social protection for the mothers too, as many mothers were reconciled with families of their bush husbands and were given access to resources like tillable land and were helped with school fees for their children. It’s can also be regarded as a source of healing, especially to those paternal families who lost their sons in the rebellion, as the reunion of the child becomes almost a replacement for their lost sons.
Throughout 2017 and 2018, the project has continued to grow in strength and create impact across the northern region of Uganda. This project has provided a strong, replicable (at least within the northern Uganda cultural context or similar), and low-cost model for reintegration. Additionally, there is now an enhanced technical capacity to conduct reintegration, as well as increased connections with and commitment from cultural leaders. More than 20 children have been reintegrated across 2016-2017, and more than 15 children are expected to have been reintegrated by June 2018. The project has not only secured many reunions, but has provided a platform for numerous families impacted by the LRA conflict to engage in dialogue and discussion for the future wellbeing of children born of war.
Goal: Children born of war and their mothers achieve reunion, reconciliation and social protection in northern Uganda.
Objectives:
1. Facilitate reintegration of children born of war, such as children born in captivity, with their families to enhance access to family support for a better welfare and create sense of identity
2. Promote acceptance and reconciliation between maternal and paternal families of children born of war and with the general community
3. Facilitate processes for increased social protection for children and their mothers over the life of the project
Expected outcomes:
1. Children born of war are properly reintegrated, feel a renewed sense of identity and have increased access to resources through a family centered reunion approach
2. Increased social cohesion and co-existence between at least 20 maternal and paternal families and the community is promoted through facilitating reconciliation processes by end of the project
3. Increased social protection for children born in war and their mothers in the community