Gender, Kinship, and Affiliation of Children Born of War in Patriarchal Northern Uganda

Abstract

This chapter explores the importance of kinship for children born of war among the Langi ethnic group of northern Uganda. Based on the author’s extensive on ethnographic research, she explores the experiences of ten children conceived in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who after exiting the LRA joined their maternal families and communities in Lango. The author finds that these children could not benefit directly from the policies that regulated the descent affiliation of newborns. First, by not invoking Lango customary marriage procedures before conception, LRA parents failed to fulfil the customary rules and conditions that clarified the identity of their offspring. This ambiguity in their descent affiliation was reflected in their struggles to integrate. Second, some maternal families found it hard to invoke a peacetime remedy like that of luk in clarifying the descent affiliation of children born of war, because of the perceived use of rape by the LRA in the sexual relations between their daughters and the fathers of their children. Like marriage, luk was a means of lineage making for offspring resulting from such relations, and the subsequent creation of new bridges between clans in the language of kinship. The concepts, practices, and rituals of marriage and luk place children in a relational position within a kinship system, making them legitimate claimants of resources and opportunities.

Teso’s Re-Forgotten Children Born of War in Uganda: At the Margins of Analysis and Interventions

“…It is important to explain that relocation to other places was not unique to Teso sub-region only. The same occurs in Acholi (Atim et al, 2018;Bergmans, 2017;Stewart, 2017) and Lango (Apio, 2016) sub-regions. Using the argument of 'push and pull' factors in migration (Lee, 1966), the movement of these children and their mothers from their initial locations to others is influenced by unbearable circumstances in their first point of settlement and the anticipation that life in their destination could be much better.…”

“Every Child Is Special…”: Perspectives on the Integration of Children Born of War and Their War-Affected Peers at a Local School in Northern Uganda

“…(see for example Apio, 2016;Baines, 2017;Porter, 2017;Stewart, 2017;Atim et al, 2018, p. 68). Some of the mothers reported that upon return, their families had been killed or displacedthe result of which was life in poverty, and inability to fend for their children.…”

“…Some of the mothers reported that upon return, their families had been killed or displacedthe result of which was life in poverty, and inability to fend for their children. In as much as some of their relatives wanted their "children" (young mothers) to return to them, their having had children born from the "bush" impacted negatively on the way CBOW have been received as children of the enemies (also see Apio, 2016;Mukasa, 2017;Stewart, 2017). Research has also revealed how the mothers' lives are clouded with shame and agony of being associated with the LRA (Liebling and Baker, 2010;Mukasa, 2017;Liebling, 2018).…”

The “secret war”: Silence, testimony, and wartime sexual violence

“…With this, Adok testifies to the centrality of marriage for legitimacy and belonging. 16 Without recognition in the paternal home, Adok is denied status, land, and the care that should be extended to women through marriage. 17 In her desire to identify and meet her children's paternal families, Adok seeks the truth of their origins.…”