War and reintegration for girls and young women in northern Uganda: A scoping review

Abstract

BackgroundDuring the civil war in northern Uganda (1986–2006), thousands of girls were abducted into rebel and government forces. Most of the females who were not abducted lived in abhorrent conditions in camps for internally displaced people (IDP). As the war was drawing to a close, reintegration programs emerged and some continue today. ObjectiveUsing a feminist lens, we conducted a scoping review to examine the literature written about these girls and young women. The impetus for this research was to determine the breadth of literature available; compare how this population is represented in the academic, practitioner and popular literature and to analyse how this representation may be impacting reintegration programming. MethodsKey words were entered into 14 academic databases, search engines and practitioner websites. Articles were included if they covered the recruitment, retention, return, and/or reintegration of formerly abducted and/or war-affected girls and women and if they were published between 2005 and 2019. A total of 112 articles were categorized and coded according to topics, themes and theoretical approaches. ResultsBased on the findings of this scoping review, it appears that many articles describe formerly abducted and war-affected young women from a deficit-based perspective, while relatively fewer articles are written with a strength-based, resiliency-focused lens. ConclusionBased on our analysis, we argue for a more nuanced representation of women formerly engaged with armed groups, and argue for a gendered, inclusive approach to reintegration programming.