AFRICA : Abduction of women and children grows in war zones, U.N. report
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29, 2004 (IPS/ST) — The abduction of women and children in military conflicts in Africa is on the rise, according to a U.N. report released Thursday, the same day an international court said it will pursue Ugandan rebels for war crimes against the two vulnerable groups.
“Young girls are being taken hostage and abducted for marriage to military commanders and long-haul truck drivers,” says the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), a U.N. body based in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
The study singles out Uganda, Sudan and Sierra Leone as three countries where abductions continue to increase.
According to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than 10,000 children have been abducted since June 2002 in northern Uganda by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed rebel group fighting the government in Kampala.
In a statement released Thursday, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) says the figure might be as high as 20,000.
The release of the ECA report coincides with an ICC announcement that it plans to pursue the Ugandan rebel group accused of war crimes against women and children.
Last December, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni urged the newly established ICC to prosecute LRA and its leaders for war crimes.
On Thursday, Museveni met ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to offer his cooperation in tracking down LRA leaders, in one of the first initiatives undertaken by the new global court.
“As part of initiation into the (LRA) rebel movement, abducted children are forced into committing inhuman acts, including ritual killing and mutilations,” the ICC said.
“A key issue will be locating and arresting the LRA leadership,” the ICC statement said. This will require the active cooperation of member states and international institutions to back the efforts of Ugandan authorities, the world court said.
ECA says governments have failed to get “vigorously involved in negotiations to free victims”, resulting in many women and children being held hostage for as long as 10 to 15 years.
“The Ugandan government has implicitly renounced its primary jurisdiction against major offenders,” said David Donat Cattin, legal advisor for the international law and human rights programme at Parliamentarians for Global Action.
“Other states facing similar situations should follow Uganda’s precedent in welcoming the initiation of ICC proceedings. It is now the duty of the (ICC) prosecutor to investigate in all directions and search for the truth on the atrocities perpetrated in northern Uganda,” Cattin added.
Frances d’Souza, executive director of the London-based human rights organisation Redress, said, “we will be closely monitoring this important development and the impact it will have on the many victims in Uganda and elsewhere”.
Casey Kelso, international coordinator for the London-based ‘Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers’, told IPS there is strong evidence that abductions of children in northern Uganda by the LRA are at “the highest point of the conflict’s 17-year history”.
“We are particularly concerned about the plight of girl children in conflict zones, and the reports from northern Uganda confirm that the girl child is under attack from gender-based violence and abductions.”
Kelso said the coalition is also concerned about international donor support for rehabilitation programmes run by UNICEF and Save the Children UK.
Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told IPS the abduction of children for use as soldiers, sex slaves and labourers is “one of the most abhorrent aspects of armed conflicts”.
“Clearly, one of the worst cases in the world today is northern Uganda, where abduction has reached catastrophic levels,” she added.
“We know that as many as 20,000 children have become ‘night commuters’ — walking long distances to urban areas each night to sleep in churches, bus stations and in open spaces — hoping to escape abduction,” Becker said.
In its statement the ICC said many LRA members are themselves victims, having been abducted and brutalised by the LRA leadership. Their reintegration into Ugandan society is key to the future stability of the country’s north, it added.
“This will require the concerted support of the international community — Uganda and the International Criminal Court cannot do this alone,” the ICC said.
The alleged crimes committed in northern Uganda — enlisting children under 15 years into the army, wilful killing, rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and forced displacement of civilians might constitute crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
The ECA study says the abduction of women and children has been exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the politically troubled continent.
UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) has reported that 11 million children in Africa have lost one or both parents from AIDS. In some southern African countries, as many as one in five children have been orphaned in this way.
The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which will meet in New York March 1-12, has strongly urged all parties to armed conflicts “to respect fully the norms of international humanitarian law in armed conflict and to provide safe and unimpeded access to humanitarian assistance for women and children taken hostage”.