Continuing our research in Gulu
We’ve had a very interesting last couple of days in Uganda. I haven’t updated this since we came back from Kampala, but we’ve been very busy trying to wrap up the research. Research trips to the field took us all the way to Kitgum (near the Sudan border) where we spent a week and were fortunate enough to speak to over 100 people there. After meeting a few more communities on the outskirts of Gulu town, we’ve now spoken to over 500 people and have another 100 people between a couple of focus groups and many in-depth interviews. It has been a lot of work but we really think the research is good and can hopefully make a difference in the communities we’ve worked with, as well as other post-conflict areas.
Near Gulu, we were privileged enough to be invited by a self-created group of child mothers. Throughout the research process, we have avoided targeting individuals and therefore try hard not to target former child soldiers, or “vulnerable youth”, but rather talk to community members in general. However, since we were invited to speak to these young women, we decided to go to meet them and hope for the best. We ended up having a very interesting and helpful discussion, while ensuring that they defined just how much they were comfortable with sharing. To clarify, child mothers are girls who have had children before the age of 18. In this group in particular, most of this girls had also been abducted by the rebels. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was when one young women emphasized that she wanted it written that they were against “the ICC and the Hague”. Not only did these largely illiterate women from the village know about the ICC, they were against its indictments because they believed it would counter the Amnesty Law. Although you could argue that these were some of the most affected victims of the war, they stressed that justice against LRA commanders would be detrimental because it would dissuade Kony to return from the bush. They also spoke about how much stigma remained against them, and especially their children who were born in the bush, and the difficulties this caused in their day to day lives.
From here, we’ll go to Lira and Pader to finish up result collection before we spend our last days in Gulu. The last few weeks are going by so fast!
We have an adventure set for tomorrow - some sort of World Food Programme Part II, so I’ll be sure to update this soon!
- Sima
Near Gulu, we were privileged enough to be invited by a self-created group of child mothers. Throughout the research process, we have avoided targeting individuals and therefore try hard not to target former child soldiers, or “vulnerable youth”, but rather talk to community members in general. However, since we were invited to speak to these young women, we decided to go to meet them and hope for the best. We ended up having a very interesting and helpful discussion, while ensuring that they defined just how much they were comfortable with sharing. To clarify, child mothers are girls who have had children before the age of 18. In this group in particular, most of this girls had also been abducted by the rebels. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was when one young women emphasized that she wanted it written that they were against “the ICC and the Hague”. Not only did these largely illiterate women from the village know about the ICC, they were against its indictments because they believed it would counter the Amnesty Law. Although you could argue that these were some of the most affected victims of the war, they stressed that justice against LRA commanders would be detrimental because it would dissuade Kony to return from the bush. They also spoke about how much stigma remained against them, and especially their children who were born in the bush, and the difficulties this caused in their day to day lives.
From here, we’ll go to Lira and Pader to finish up result collection before we spend our last days in Gulu. The last few weeks are going by so fast!
We have an adventure set for tomorrow - some sort of World Food Programme Part II, so I’ll be sure to update this soon!
- Sima
Comments
Post a Comment