Justice for survivors of sexual violence in Kitgum, Uganda

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in the Kitgum district of northern Uganda, this paper investigates the experience of justice for the large number of survivors, female and male, of sexual violence as a result of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and its aftermath. It asks: what justice do survivors of sexual violence want; what access to justice do survivors of LRA sexual violence have; what access to justice do the survivors of current sexual violence have; and what are the problems faced with delivering justice. It finds that the response has been minimal, ineffective and inappropriate. It concludes that the neglect of justice has serious implications for the attitudes on Acholi people towards the current Uganda government, for it perpetuates the perceived sense of marginalisation felt by many Acholi and which was a contributor to the LRA rebellion.

Keywords:

• sexual violence
• LRA
• Uganda
• survivor justice

Notes

1. Both Annan et al. (2006) and Pham and Vinck (2007a) give a higher figure of 60,000–80,000.

2. The wife of the onetime second in command, Ojoro, interviewed on 16 December 2009, said: ‘Kony has a policy that people ranging from 19 years upwards should not be abducted but from 18 years and below these are the people he wants. The reasons: One, these are people who are easy to indoctrinate. Two, these are people who are healthy and energetic and can take up the roles very fast. And three, these are the young girls who are free of HIV and STDs whereas the rest, 19 years and above, these people can reason and they are able to detect where they have come from and they can escape and when you instruct them to do something they are very slow. They are hesitant because they have all the knowledge now. So these are the reasons he does not want these mature women’.

3. A seminar in Gulu in 2007 hosted by World Vision, concluded: ‘… over 90% of the girls abducted were forced into marriages with their abductors’ (World Vision 2007)

4. Blattman and Annan (2009). A sample in 2005–2006 of 741 males aged 14–30 in one sub-county found that more than a quarter were abducted for at least two weeks. Lengths of abduction ranged from a day to 10 years, averaging 8.9 months. Two thirds of abductees were forced to perpetrate a crime or violence. A fifth were forced to murder soldiers, civilians or even family members. Fewer than 2% of returnees reported insults or fear from their community and family. This compares with 10 interviews I held with male abductees where lengths of abduction ranged from a month to two years, averaging 13.7 months. Half of abductees admitted to committing sexual violence. Twenty per cent of returnees reported stigmatisation from their community

5. For explanations of this failure, ranging from UPDF inability to government unwillingness for political and/or economic reasons, see Branch (2005), International Crisis Group (2004), Van Acker (2004) and Refugee Law Project (2004).

6. The people were given 48 hours to leave their homes and move into IDP camps. Any individual who did not obey was thought of as a rebel collaborator. Baines (2009) speaks of forced deployment to internment camps

7. Ugandan troops killed Bok Abudema, the number two of the LRA, near Djema in the southeast of the Central African Republic on 2 January 2010. In November 2009 it was claimed that Ugandan special forces killed another senior LRA commander, Okello Kutti, in the CAR, near its eastern border with Sudan. Also, in September the army captured a top bodyguard to Kony in the same country. The Ugandan army is pursuing the rebels in the CAR with that government's permission. See RNW (2010).

8. ‘In light of this significant and enduring progress since 2006, Northern Uganda no longer deserves the distinction of being considered “the world's worst forgotten humanitarian crisis”. It has transitioned from a war zone to a civilian-run reconstruction effort, with significant amounts of donor assistance and attention. If anything, northern Uganda suffers from too much outside intervention’(US Department of State 2009. In addition to the withdrawal a study on sexual violence found organised community care services were not only missing but even sensitisation and mobilisation of people appear to be at a rudimentary level (Okot 2005). The peace and recovery programme also omitted to mention psychosocial rehabilitation.

9. Bearing a child as a result of sexual violence increases social isolation. ‘I wanted to be integrated with the other ordinary girls. The other girls in the community also insult and threaten me and say, “you s houldn't bring the mentality of the rebels or we will deal with you”. I was also threatened by the other previous abductees’ (Interview, abductee, December 2009). For similar examples in the eastern Congo, see Onekalit (2005, 103).

10. Cf. Women forced into sexual slavery with Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone (Amnesty International 2007, 5).

11. For the Northern region as a whole, the rural poverty headcount (i.e. the share of the rural population living in households below the poverty line) is 65% (cf. national average: 31%). The rural poor numbered more than 3,000,000 in the North (42% of the whole country). In Kitgum, the poverty headcount was 77.8%; the total number of poor individuals was 186,677, life expectancy was 29.1 year and adult literacy was 57.1% (Levine 2009)

12. The research was funded by the UK's British Academy (Award Reference: SG-53937).

13. For UPDF violations see Human Rights Watch (2005). In one IDP camp 60% of women were ‘physically and sexually assaulted, threatened and humiliated by the men in whom they have the greatest trust’ (UNICEF 2005). Survivors speak of the perpetrators of rape, child sexual abuse and physical assault as including the UPDF and police (Pham and Vinck 2004; 2007b).

14. Human Rights Watch (2004) document widespread rape and brutal attacks on women by their husbands

15. Cf. women of Sierra Leone (Amnesty International 2007, 5).

16. The Uganda Amnesty Commission in December of 2008 said that 24,000 ex-LRA members, 17,000 combatants, had been granted amnesty under the Ugandan Amnesty law that was initially established in 2000

17. An influential movement led by Catholic, Anglican and Muslim leaders in northern Uganda. Formed in 1998 it advocated negotiation rather than military solutions to the rebellion.

18. Agenda 3, Clause 4.1 says that state actors shall be tried under existing mechanisms.

19. AllAfrica, 18 April 2009.

20. Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative (2001, 8–10, 2008).

21. See Sunday Vision (1994; 1995); New Vision (1994; 1995a; 1995b; 1995c); Monitor (1995a).

22. See New Vision (1995d), Monitor (1995b).

23. See also Finnstrom (2008, 197–200); Amnesty International (1999)

24. Richards (2005), from his analysis of the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, highlights injustice by chiefs as a major cause of conflict. Yet the principle is the same that injustice felt by rural youth offers opportunity for their mobilisation into conflict so as to produce a fairer order.