The Battleground

From the Frontline Website:

In a recent NBC Dateline interview, Jan Egeland (United Nations Undersecretary General for Emergency Relief - pictured left) reported that he has spent years begging world leaders to stop ignoring Northern Uganda.

Mr. Egeland describes the Northern Ugandan civil war being fought with children as "one of the biggest scandals of our time and generation".

For the past 18 years, the rest of the world has turned a blind eye to the abduction of countless thousands of children (as young as 7) to be used as child soldiers and sex-slaves.

Mr. Egeland, who has worked in hundreds of different countries with human rights, peace, and humanitarian problems for more that 25 years, said he was "shocked to his bones" with what he saw in Northern Uganda, having never seen anything as bad.

"This is terror like no other terror". Yet, no one in the rest of the world seems to know anything about what's going on.

Villagers can no longer farm their land for fear of being attacked by a rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA - led by notorious witchdoctor Joseph Kony - pictured left).

As such, nearly 2 million people (90% of the population of Northern Uganda and 1/5 of all African refugees), are now living as internally displaced refugees.

Despite military protection in refugee camps, LRA attacks on civilian populations continue.

Children abducted by the LRA are forced to fight against National Military Forces, raid villages for food, destroy property, rape and slaughter civilians, and abduct other children.

Young children are often forced to witness their parents being killed.

Moreover, as a means of trauma and emotional manipulation, abducted children are required to participate in the killing of other children who have also been abducted (or face being killed themselves).

These emotional manipulation tactics are aimed at traumatising children and discourage them from escaping.

Young girls are given to commanders as wives, and bare children into captivity to be groomed as the new generation of ruthless killers.

It is estimated that 90% of the LRA is now comprised of children; creating a dilemma for National military objectives to counter the rebel group's violent activities.

So the question is what are we going to do about it?

 

VISIT THE FRONTLINE WEBSITE TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED IN MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF WAR CHILDREN IN NORTHERN UGANDA