When war is better than peace: The post-conflict realities of children born of wartime rape in northern Uganda

Abstract

This paper examines the realities and perspectives of a sample of 60 children born of wartime rape within the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and currently living in northern Uganda. These children were born to mothers who were abducted by the LRA, held captive for extended periods of time, repeatedly raped and impregnated. The paper explores the multiple challenges that these children face in the post-war period including, rejection, stigma, violence, socio-economic marginalization, and issues of identity and belonging. Participants underscored the profound violence and deprivation that they experienced while in LRA captivity. However, because of post-war marginalization, participants individually and collectively articulated that wartime was better than peacetime. Multiple systems of support are needed to ensure the rights and protection of these children and importantly, to address and reverse young people’s perceptions that “war is better than peace”.