Reconciliation Programs from the Experiences of War-Affected Persons in Post-Conflict Northern Uganda

Abstract

Today, more than ever, armed conflict perpetuators capitalize on the resourcefulness of young people to achieve their aims leading to young people’s involvement in armed conflicts as ‘child soldiers’, and exposing them to adverse problems including broken relationships with their own families or communities against whom they might have committed (forcibly or otherwise) serious crimes. Consequently, when the conflict ends, or the young people manage to return home they are faced with enormous challenge of reintegrating within the communities they transgressed against, an issue which calls for reconciliation. However what reconciliation means from the perspective of those who had to go through it, and what post-conflict programing should do for them is not clear. This study, employing in-depth case study approach, sought to increase current understanding of reconciliation and reconciliation programs by examining the views of formerly abducted children themselves, relatives and key informants, drawing from their lived experiences in the context of post-conflict northern Uganda.

Keywords:

• reconciliation programs
• war affected persons
• post conflict
• northern uganda

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/JYDWQ, DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/JYDWQ and DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/JYDWQ.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the young people, their relatives and informants who accepted to give their valuable views incorporated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was carried out with the financial support of the Belgian Technical Cooperation and of VLIR-UOS via the HEFS Platform Harvest Call [ZIUS2013VOA0902].

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Alipanga

Benjamin Alipanga, PhD, is a lecturer at the department of mental health and community psychology, Makerere University, Uganda. He is the author of numerous publications on trauma and competence based training among clinical psychology graduate student.

Ibrahim Luberenga

Ibrahim Luberenga, master’s degree, is a PhD student at the department of Human development and Family studies, Michigan State University. He is the author of the scoping review article protocol on mental health awareness programs among workers in low and middle income countries. His research interest is on the cultural adaptation of different therapeutic interventions among families which have experienced traumatic events.