Staying or Going? Complex lives post-LRA


The family of Bosco and Eunice photographed outside their home near Gulu in Uganda

Incredibly complex article in the FT Weekend regarding ex-kid soldiers and their wives (mostly young girls that were also abducted) from Joseph Kony's Lord Resistance Army.

The complexity in the article comes from the relationship the abductees (both girls and boys) had/have during their time in the bush and thereafter. It seems potentially inconceivable to a "Western" mindset, how after having escaped, some of these women choose to live with their "bush" husbands (they themselves captured earlier as children). Some of these husbands raped them, forced themselves upon them (at the least), and yet many of them seek them post event. Now, as I was reading this, justifications via Stockholm syndrome came to mind, as well as potential lame arguments regarding Africa in general came to mind as the reason why. But although the article is not explicit about it,  I believe, much comes from the lack of choices available to them. Would they have made the same decision had they other options available to them? Maybe.


“They asked me, ‘When our children grow up, they will want to know their father, so why not go back to him now? What can I do?’ It was a rhetorical question; they had made up their minds.” When the women and their children reached her centre, the men’s families would find them and offer to take care of them.
Many of these young women had had little schooling before they were abducted; their employment prospects were bleak. Trained at the rehab centres as tailors, they set up shop in markets only to find no business."

All the above is compounded by the appalling trauma this population is subjected ex-post. Nowhere else to go, they are rejected by their communities due to the atrocities they were forced to commit, now back in peace, they still get no rest. Bouts of drinking, abuse....

I was very curious on the commentary regarding the Truth & Reconciliation commission that they themselves, as potential receivers of punishment, seek. It has direct link the to the book that I am currently reading, The World Until Yesterday by Jarred Diamond; in particular to the chapter regarding conflict resolution amongst traditional societies. The commission seemingly in their view would seem no to atone publicly and gain healing & closure so as to be able to proceed with their everyday lives.

Lives in constant danger.


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