Returning Rebel Women Face Rejection

While most people throughout war-ravaged northern Uganda say the thousands of young girls and women abducted by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, should return home, most struggle to be accepted by a society they once knew as their own.



Former women abductees who escape or were released from LRA captivity told IWPR that while they suffered physical hardships in the bush, they encounter new troubles on their return: branded and ostracised because of their rebel past.



Many of the young women say their attempts to remarry and start a new life have been killed off by their rebel past which routinely has caused breakups and compounded the social and psychological burdens suffered from years in the bush.



On a recent day at the Bungatira Primary School in Gulu, 28-year-old Vicky Adong-piny, a resident of the Coo-Pe refugee camp, led her friends in singing a mournful song, titled “I Am Tired of This Misery”, as part of a welcoming ceremony.



Adong-piny was abducted in 1991, but escaped from the LRA in 2004 with two children she bore as wife of a rebel commander. She later married after her escape, but the relationship was short-lived.



"I was hopeful that I would finally know the meaning of a relationship based on mutual consent, but I realised I was dreaming,” she said.



Adong-piny said she was never accepted by her husband’s family.



The constant complaining about her by her husband’s relatives, she said, finally convinced him to leave her. “Why do you want to marry a rebel? She will strangle you at night," Adong-piny remembered the relatives saying.



She also suffered terrible nightmares, she said.



"It is true I experienced bad dreams and nightmares, and I sometimes shouted at night," she confessed, as tears filled her eyes. “And just six months into the relationship, I couldn't bear his family pressure anymore."



Adong-piny is among an estimated 35,000 children who have been abducted by the LRA in its 20-year war in northern Uganda, which has left an estimated 100,000 dead from war and war-related causes. About half of the abducted children were young girls and women.



Adong-piny and some 20 other former women abductees have organised their own support group and provide each other with comfort and solace, she said, because they understand each other's situation.



Lucy Atoo, who is 19 and has a nine-month-old baby she keeps tied at her back, sang along with the mournful tune of her colleagues.



Atoo was abducted in 2000 but escaped a year later in 2001. She also entered into a relationship last year, but like the others, her husband left her not long after she became pregnant.



Like Adong-piny, Atoo blamed the fact that she was branded a rebel for her problems. Now she has no interest in another marriage.



"There was constant pressure from his friends,” said Atoo of her former husband. “Why do you marry a killer when there are very many straight-minded ladies?" her husband's friends would ask.



"A small quarrel that [should have been] simply solved ensued, and he told me to pack my things. He seemed to have been waiting for the slightest row to see my back," said Atoo.



"Maybe I will get a man, but only after he has accepted me the way I am. Right now, I am afraid that when I get one, the same people will be set to break my relationship."



Atoo said she wants help so she can return to school and find someone to look after her child while she studies.



Most of the abducted women never went to school since they were taken at a very young age, and as a result have few or no skills needed to earn a living.



Florence Aber, 21, who spent six months in the bush after being abducted by the LRA, has also struggled with relationships.



"My friend was killed while I was watching, so I always have those [flashbacks] and shout at night,” said Aber, adding that her violent nightmares ruined her marriage. “My husband ditched me, saying he can't stay with someone who is possessed by demons.



"I don't want to marry again because…I can't stand another break-up."



Aber said many young girls were forced to have sex with old men at very tender age, and as a result, can’t have children - yet another difficult social stigma.



Dr Thomas Oyok, a psychiatrist at the Gulu Mental Health Unit, told IWPR that most abductees have witnessed or committed brutal acts, and can re-experience these incidents. Some may even act them out. As a result, they’re a threat to society.



"Any mental condition can predispose the victim to be violent, and the violence is aggravated by stigma, discrimination,” said Oyok.



He recommended that people suffering post-traumatic stress should not be confined or isolated, but quickly reintegrated into society.



Many of the former abductees who went directly home without reporting to the many reception and reintegration centres for abductees often are doing better than those who were counseled, he said.



At such centres, "a victim [of post-traumatic stress] might meet [someone] who was possibly forced to kill his relative,” said Oyok, and “this meeting normally opens an old wound. The victim will definitely flashback to the event, and this acts against his or her healing process".



He said the former abductees should instead be allowed to mix with other members of the community, and be handled with love, care and support so that they feel part of the society.



Caroline Ayugi is an IWPR journalist in Uganda.