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Uganda, a former British colony, became independent within the Commonwealth on 9 October 1962. The Republic was proclaimed exactly one year later.
On 15 April 1966, Prime Minister Milton Obote assumed the presidency, until then reserved for the king of Buganda, creating a unitary constitution in 1967. Independence was followed by a long season of political instability.
In 1971 power was seized by Idi Amin Dada, whose dictatorial rule lasted a decade.
In 1986, Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army took the capital Kampala; since then Museveni has been President of Uganda (Giargiuolo E. et al., 2021). Its difficult to establish exactly the total number of victims since the beginning of the conflict between the Museveni regime and the LRA in 1987: hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have lost their lives (Simoncelli, 2005).
CHILD SOLDIERS: THE TRAUMA OF WAR
The use of child soldiers has certainly represented one of the most dramatic aspects of the conflict in Uganda. The UN has ascertained the presence of minor combatants both in the ranks of the Ugandan army and in the Lord’s Resistance Army LRA. In 1989, when Museveni’s National Resistance Army took power, it had 3,000 teenagers in its ranks, many of them under the age of 16, including as many as 500 girls. The LRA consisted largely of children kidnapped from their villages and their families. Since 1994, the kidnapping of children has become the main method of recruitment: it is estimated that 25,000 children were forcibly recruited by the LRA guerrillas during the entire course of the war. The abductions reached their peak between May 2002 and May 2003, when an estimated 10,000 minors were abducted. The age of the kidnapped minors, initially 13-15 years, gradually decreased to 8-10 years, as the younger children are more easily controlled and the girls, kidnapped to be used as sex slaves, at that time age is, they were less likely to be infected with HIV (Human Rights Watch, 2003).
After the kidnapping, the boys were brutally beaten to “prepare” them for the harshness of life as soldiers and the girls were raped. Children were also forced to kill their relatives, including their brothers, as an “initiation rite“, to make them feel accomplices and psychologically bind them to the army. In addition, they were forced to participate in fighting, to kill and maim other child soldiers attempting to flee, to kill civilians, and to loot and burn houses during raids on villages. They were forced to carry heavy loads over long distances and to work many hours a day to get food, water and wood for the guerrillas. Deaths from hunger, thirst or exhaustion were common, and children who could not physically bear these fatigues were killed.
The punishments they were subjected to included being beaten or mutilated.
Girls were raped, then forced to fight or held in slavery for sexual purposes or to do housework. As a result of the rapes, the girls became pregnant and often contracted HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. They were frequently given in marriage to officers as a reward for their valour: thus creating a sort of social order whereby military leaders also headed families made up of child-wives and the children who are born, children destined to swell the ranks of the combatants.
PTSD and WAR
Many children have been traumatized by this experience and are experiencing what is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In a short period of time, especially in Northern Uganda, there has been an increase in suicide deaths due to this situation. PTSD is defined as a trauma- and stress-related disorder that can develop after experiencing an event or experience in which death or serious bodily harm has occurred or been threatened.
Some causes of PTSD are:
- or be a hostage or victim of a kidnapping;
- or be a victim of human trafficking;
- or suffer sexual or physical abuse;
- o be a victim of domestic abuse (physical or emotional) or be in an abusive romantic relationship;
- or be the victim of a car accident;
- or witness someone’s violent death;
- or witnessing someone die as a result of an illness or distressing circumstance;
- or living during a war or witnessing a terrorist attack, natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami.
SYMPTOMS of PTSD
PTSD affects the way the brain processes and responds to certain situations. The initial symptoms are mainly mental and emotional, as the severity increases, the symptoms can also become physical. Here are some of the most common symptoms detected in the Ugandan population, particularly in child soldiers employed in the conflict:
- depression and anxiety (the depressive event is very frequent among children subjected to particularly severe tests, as is the case of exposure to violence and killings);
- lack of joy or interest in things you used to enjoy (affective flattening, often used as an unconscious defense mechanism after witnessing violent events);
- use and addiction to drugs or alcohol in order not to suffer or to cope with the trauma;
- having flashbacks of the traumatic event and feeling as if it were happening again; this last symptom is very delicate and leads to a strong physical reaction. For example, if a victim of war rape suffers from PTSD, the simple act of being hugged by her father or husband or friend can push her back into the rape and cause her to physically react against the same physical affection because that is how she reacted with the her attacker;
- nightmares and night terrors;
- suffer from insomnia;
- have difficulty focusing on things or thinking clearly (hypervigilance);
- having panic attacks or other physical symptoms such as sweating or trouble breathing. (Girmenia, 2007)
In conclusion, the presence of child soldiers is reported today both in regular armies and in guerrilla movements and militias engaged in the numerous wars with an ethnic and religious background that are bloodying the world. In contrast to this situation, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) explicitly prohibits conscription for all children under the age of 15.
The use of children under the age of 15 in armed conflicts has been included in the war crimes over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction. Furthermore, in 2011 the Optional Protocol to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force, setting 18 as the minimum age to participate in warfare or to be recruited into the army. Therefore, these measures have as main objective to counter the recruitment and involvement of minors in armed militias in the face of a greater awareness of the serious consequences that war and direct involvement in armed clashes produces in minors.
However, the demobilization of these fighters proved to be very difficult due to the traumas suffered and because the children often did not want to return to their communities of origin, for fear of rejection and stigmatization. Since the 1990s, several NGOs have opened rehabilitation centers for ex-child soldiers in Gulu, Lira and other cities, assisting over 20,000 ex-combatants (Amnesty International, 2008).
Amonini Selene
Bibliography
Albanese G.(2021) Uganda: disturbo post-traumatico da stress, una nuova emergenza sanitari. Cefarh Uganda, 2021
Amnesty International. (2008) Coalition To Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers Global Report;
Convention on the Rights of the Child. (1989). United Nations General Assembly. New York.
Giargiuolo E., et al. (2021) IRIAD REVIEW. Studi sulla pace e sui conflitti.Mensile dell’IRIAD (Istituto di Ricerche Internazionali Archivio Disarmo). ISSN 2611-3953.
Girmenia E. (2007). Il fenomeno dei BAMBINI SOLDATO e gli effetti psicopatologici dei conflitti moderni.
Human Rights Watch. (2003) Stolen children: abduction and recruitment in Northern Uganda. Vol 15, n. 7
Protocollo opzionale alla Convenzione sui diritti del fanciullo (2011). Assemblea Generale delle Nazioni Unite, New York.
Simoncelli M., (2005), Le guerre del silenzio. Alla scoperta dei conflitti e delle crisi del XXI secolo. The Guardian.
A.P.E. 
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