Uganda
The civil war between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), headed by Joseph Kony, has been going on for about 23 years, involving 2 millions civilians and displacing thousands of people. Despite the Juba Peace Talks from June 2006 to March 2008, Kony has failed to sign any peace agreements with the government and has continued recruiting and abducting children from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. US Special Forces have been deployed in Uganda as part of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 in order to capture Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
There has been no child recruitment into the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), the national armed forces, discovered in 2010. However, children captured by the UPDF are interrogated and used to gather intelligence on LRA positions and weapons caches, detained for longer than the 48 hours allowed by law.
About 25,000 to 30,000 children have been abducted by the LRA since the beginning of the conflict. In October 2007, the LRA had an estimated 2,000 women and children with them. In some regions, 24% of the child soldiers are girls.
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1/2/10 Uganda Ugandan troops kill top commander of child soldier-recruiting rebel group LRA http://tiny.cc/CIMlJ
10/22/09 Uganda GuluWalk brings attention to plight of Ugandan children http://tiny.cc/bKEi3
10/19/09 Uganda Former Ugandan child soldier, kidnapped when he was 10, talks about 15 years trapped in rebel army http://tiny.cc/eNEOq
10/26/09 Uganda Former Ugandan child soldier, kidnapped at 15, shares story-http://tiny.cc/2mPF5
8/28/09 Uganda The BBC reports on the upcoming film ‘Girl Soldier’:http://tiny.cc/dpNYx
8/11/09 Uganda The LRA & Uganda meet DC Comics -http://bit.ly/3r86FJ
7/22/09 Uganda Uma Thurman to star in independent movie to raise awareness about child soldiers, called Girl Soldier: http://tiny.cc/zx56k
President Obama announces that he is sending one hundred US troops to Uganda
By Kate Davey, Director of Research Projects
On October 14, President Obama announced that he was sending one hundred US troops to Uganda to “provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.
Read More...Hollywood to confront the issue of girl soldiers in Uganda with new film
Uma Thurman, star of Kill Bill and other award-winning films, will act as a schoolteacher in a film depicting the struggle of a group of girls who were abducted and forced to serve as sex slaves in Uganda in 1996. The Hollywood beauty will star in the drama based on the 1996 incident which saw [...]
Read More...Psychological and traditional approaches essential to healing process
“Using counselling sessions, art and acting“, former abductees, child soldiers and child victims of war are being rehabilitated and reintegrated back into their communities in war-torn Uganda. The Children of War Center in Gulu, operated by World Vision Canada, has helped to rehabilitate more than 15,000 children. Many of the children arriving at the center [...]
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