The Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) says it will train its officers on how to handle and treat children that have been rescued from battlefields.
Currently, the army has set up a facility in Gulu where new arrivals are received before their relatives come and pick them.
During the peak of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led insurgency, the UPDF rescued dozens of abducted children and later reintegrated them with their families.
After the LRA and its ICC indicted leaders shifted its bases to Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and South Sudan, the regional army backed by the US Special Forces continue with military operations and it has resulted into the rescue of hundreds of children in the affected countries.
Col. Charles Wacha Angulo, the Director Human Rights Affairs in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) revealed that unlike adults, children require special treatment since they respond to psychological effect of war differently from adults.
Col. Wacha explained that, “Trauma has a great impact on young people who are abducted and rescued from the warfront.”
He noted that, “In countries such as Somalia and the Central African Republic, the UPDF have come face to face with the challenges of handling rescued children and there is need that our capacity be enhanced in order to respond appropriately to the new problem.”
On that note, Col. Wacha says officers from the Children Protection Unit (CPU) of the army will have to undergo a special training so as to enable them to provide most needed counselling services to children rescued from enemies.
He revealed that, “The UPDF will set up offices in the war affected regions in order to provide the support before the abductees are reintegrated into the society where their families live.
According to Global Report on Child Soldiers (2001), it is estimated that some 300,000 children – boys and girls under the age of 18 – are today involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide.
Often these children are kidnapped from their parents and indoctrinated, given brief training and along with the adult rebel carders, sent to fight with the fully trained, fully equipped government forces.
Many child solders get killed in the war and those who survive suffer deep physical and psychological trauma.
